Soulmate! Where are you!
by spotdot
Summary: MY NAME IS MARCO BODT. AND I DO NOT KNOW WHAT AM I DOING. Finding a soulmate is one thing BUT IT APPEARS TO BE THAT THERE'S MORE TO IT THAN THAT. However I'll do what I must in order to be united with my fated partner: that is the Bodt way of life.
1. Chapter 1

As a person with a phlegmatic temperament, people never really bother me.

So it takes someone special, someone very, very special, to drive me up the wall so far that I go out of my own way to physically track them down.

It really wasn't as easy to do that as I first thought.

When I was thirteen, I went on a shopping trip to Trost with my mum and dad. Why? Because they wanted to be spontaneous. I just wished they'd been "spontaneous" closer to home, a small town called Jinae, so that I wouldn't have to suffer the two hour long drive home where I made faces at the cars going by when my parents weren't looking. As much fun as that was, I would have preferred to write stories in my notebook or play football with my friends in the park.

I ended up trudging behind them while they dived into shops of all kinds in the large shopping centre, maintaining at least a three feet distance between me and them. Because at thirteen years old, it didn't matter where you were and if no-one knew who you were; you just didn't want anyone to see you with your parents. It was a bit obvious, though, that they were my parents, considering I had my mum's soot black hair and my dad's freckles.

I stayed outside a particularly girly looking shop with flowers on the sign and looked at the comedy sketch through the window. My mum was showing my dad some ridiculous floral dress in the middle of the tiled shop floor while he nodded at it enthusiastically, probably telling her it'd look amazing on her. Of course it would; that woman could pull off floral any day. She was the kind of nice, nurturing mum that you'd expect to find in floral clothes and with her hair in a bun-which it was. Clothes like that were basically "mum brand" clothes worldwide. While I was watching them potter around the shop, both with sickeningly lovesick gazes aimed towards each other, and not really thinking about anything, a truly random thought came into my mind:

"Three miles to your left, down Trost's main street." I heard a man-a boy?- growl into my ear.

I turned around frantically, expecting to find pervert leering over my shoulder or a grouchy kid on the floor looking up at me with a scowl. Don't panic, I told myself. It was just a prank. Whoever it was, was gone by now; probably spluttering in laughter down some alley at my reaction. My parents come out the shop just then, smiling at me and finally declaring that we go and get something to eat in the next town over. I couldn't have been more thankful for my parents' wanderlust at that moment.

I didn't hear that voice again for the remainder of the trip that day. But it still freaked me out.

It took some will power to confess to my parents what was happening, a few painful years later. I always panicked when I went to Trost for shopping trips, I always heard that odd and irritating but somehow familiar voice giving me the most obscure directions.

"Go around the bend, if I'm not already driving you there." I made sure to avoid that particular corner. Not that I would have went anyway, there were some scary looking thugs lurking there and I didn't exactly plan on making friends with them.

"Turn to the right and zigzag your way into my life. Or just across this insane car park." I ran away from the car park.

"Why did the chicken cross the road? And go down the path? And then down the street on the third left road? Hint; it was to find me."

The raucous, boyish voice that rang in my mind finally caught my conscious attention.

I was supposed to find him?

I waited outside the panelled living room door. Through the small windows, I could see that my parents were sitting inside the dark room on the couch, watching the T.V that lit up their faces and talking to each other during the movie, like they always did. It was really weird how convenient it was that were both so similar like that. Someone who did the same things as you. Something simple like talking during a movie.

I had to build up the nerve before I walked in.

Last time I'd tried to talk to them about something serious-which may or may not have been the odd and uncomfortable curling hairs growing all of a sudden in my arm pit-it had ended with them just laughing it off and telling me that it was "life" and "the beginning of my manhood". I was under the impression that hearing the voices of a strange guy who wanted you to "find" them, maybe stalk them, possibly worship the ground they walked on, wasn't exactly what I'd been taught in circle time during sex education.

And the fact that I actually considered this voice to be another person or another person's probably meant I needed to go to a mental health facility.

I figured "what the hay, it couldn't hurt to be laughed at again-at least not physically-so just get it over with" and pulled the golden handle down to walk inside. My parents were snuggled together on the couch, nestled in a big blanket, and they looked up at me with identical and owlish expressions.

"Oh! Hey, Marco! We were just watching this romantic comedy with Jennifer Anniston in it, do you want to watch it with us? We didn't call you down because we know you're not really into this sort of thing." My mum grinned at me cheerily, and my dad went back to watching the movie. It couldn't hurt…

I sat down beside them, or well, I sat down on the arm of the couch since they took up the entire area of cushions that we had.

"So…"

I began speaking but chickened out. Ugh. I was so going to regret this.

No-je ne regrette rien! Keep going Bodt! Live up to your family name (that doesn't exactly have any ancestors worth mentioning)!

"I hear voices in my head, or no, wait, it's just one voice. A guy's. Whenever I'm in Trost I always hear his voice and he gives me directions, that are apparently going to lead me to him." I told them quickly, casually looking at the screen instead of them.

When I peeked over at them, I was not expecting their reaction. I fell on the floor as they both piled onto me.

"MARCO THIS IS AMAZING."

"I'M SUDDENLY VERY HAPPY FOR YOU, SON."

"WHY IS THIS AMAZING AND MAKING YOU HAPPY?!" My voice was muffled under the thick blanket. "And why only suddenly? Shouldn't you always be happy for my well being?"

They rolled around together on the floor excitedly, making "happy" sounds. I really hoped they were, because I was already tempted to phone an ambulance due to their abrupt, seizure-like floor dance. My dad crawled up to me, releasing himself from the cocoon of my mum's blanket, he squeezed my shoulders with big hands and gazed into my eyes with his adoring grey ones.

"That's the voice of your soul mate! It's how your mum and I found each other, quite literally!"

After that incident in the living room, I was shipped to Trost with a small stash of money for a hotel so that I could find this guy. A guy I apparently hadn't made up. A guy who I knew nothing about apart from his sarcasm and impatience:

"I'm pretty sure an atheist would find God before you found me."

Comments like that were usually followed by more directions. But as I would be so lucky; I have absolutely no sense of direction.

Ask me where my house is and I'll point in the opposite direction. I once sent a humble Asian women to the slum estate when she asked to go to the town centre. It took me three months and several, unwilling guides to find my way around my high school- Jinae Academy-and the layout plan was basically just three levels of open space, circled hallways.

I got off the small, grotty bus after two hours and a half, seeing as my parents wanted me to go on a pilgrimage-like expedition like they had "when they were young", ignoring the fact that I had about as much idea as to where I was going as a pigeon. Immediately, I heard the boy's voice, who I guessed was about the same age as me. My soul mate's voice, I reminded myself.

"Go past the shop with the rickety sign," All the shops I saw had lopsided signs because of the wind. "Go down the road in the alley next to it and continue forward for one mile, then…"

It was pointless listening to him if I couldn't even find the first point on the trip I'd been sent to go on. Actually, why didn't he just find me? Why did I have to find him? It would've been a hell load easier.

But, then again, I am quite a nice person. And it never hurts to live up to that trait. I ignored his childish protests ("You're getting colder, COLDer, COLDER-ICE COLD.") when I began to make my way to the cheap hotel my mum had suggested I go to, since her friend worked there and would keep me safe (I was sixteen- I didn't need coddling. Oh well, I'd probably get a discount or something).

I hurriedly signed in, raced up to my room, dumped my bag on the bed and locked the door before running out again. LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

….

OR FAIL.

MISERABILY.

AND SEND ME INTO THE WILDERNESS.

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT.

WITH MY PHONE'S BATTERY OUT OF CHARGE.

It was bad enough that I had no sense of direction, but now I had to live up to the cliché horror movie scene where the protagonist enters an empty house and gets murdered?

Top tip of survival-stick to the trees. Or just stay put. At least I got that part right (and to think I'd learned it in geography, of all the sources of information).

I sat at the kerb of the road, waiting for someone to drive by so I could hightail a lift back to town.

Nope. Definitely not as easy as I first thought. Stupid, bad-at-giving-directions-soul mate.

It had better be worth it in the end. That was, if I didn't find myself walking into some river because of his atrocious instructing.


	2. Chapter 2

"Aha! I found you!"

I heard a rowdy voice call from somewhere in front of me.

My back was leaning against a thick tree stump and I panicked slightly, having just woken up by the shout. Had I fallen asleep? Where? What? I rubbed my eyes with grazed, muddy fingers while my head ached and throbbed, pounding in time to the footsteps that thudded in the grass towards me. How even..? My head was beginning to hurt even more as the confusion swelled in my skull. I looked up into the dark surroundings to see a figure lingering over me, a boy-a very attractive boy, that is-with a lean body and blonde- or was it brown?-hair. He knelt down onto the tall grass in front of me, grinning cockily with his crooked teeth showing.

"Hell yeah!"

I groaned in pain at the loud noise and from my headache. I was so exhausted, and it was like he was my mom waking me up for school after a hangover. Not that I knew what that felt like. I was underage, after all. (Who lets that stop them? Goodie two shoes Marco B: that's who.)

"Huh? What d'you mean? The heck's going on?" I slurred.

He raised a dark eyebrow, smirking at me like he knew everything about everything. I kinda wanted to reach out and touch his face. Yes, as weird as that sounds. It looked like porcelain in the darkness, with the half moon shining down on his right side. So pretty. But my arm felt dead so I didn't. It might've been weird to do that, if you thought about it. Tiredness didn't really excuse social ineptness, did it? I didn't really feel like trying since I was dead tired, but what an experience that would've been…

"It's because I'm psychic."

"…What is?"

"That I found you. I've been hearing your voice-it's definitely your voice-for ages, years even, telling me where to go whenever you get lost. And even though you seem to get lost so many times, I've never found you, until now."

His smirk was beginning to look more like an excited smile. It was really cute, if I was being honest with myself. It wasn't as if he had to know my thoughts.

"My voice?"

When he said psychic, I thought creepy. Maybe that's putting it a bit harshly; weird, perhaps? His smile lessened the strangeness of what he was saying. So did my headache. That was doing wonders for me, as well as blurring my vision it stopped him from sounding too weird. I frowned at him and scratched my sweaty scalp, shuffling so that my back wasn't on the rough bark, because man did that stuff hurt and my poor back was feeling sensitive. I was pretty sure I could feel more stinging scrapes there, reaching up and down like cat claw marks.

"Yeah, no idea what the hell that's about. But it just means I'm special, so I'll deal." He shrugged, then peered at me, scanning my face, and pressed his palm to my forehead.

I wasn't too tired to flinch from the stranger's touch, delicate as it were, and I felt my face heat up. Hot or not; I wasn't exactly comfortable with him touching me, but he didn't seem to care. His face softened then I stopped minding it. I would've stopped him somehow if he'd looked like a pervert, I would have, but I began to like his casual forwardness. His appearance didn't really seem like the touchy-feely type: pointy jaw, straight nose, permanently narrowed, cat-like eyes and a small, tight lipped mouth. There was his rough voice too; I could easily imagine him scoffing a lot and insulting others. Suddenly he jolted, his eyes-what colour were they? Too dark to see them properly-widened and he took his other hand to my head and combed through my hair , sending shivers down my spine.

"Holy shit man, you're bleeding, like, there's actually a lot of blood. How can you not feel that?!" His voice rose in panic and his face contorted in fear.

OH. Bring this guy to a haunted house; just do it, just do the thing.

"It's fine, it's fine." I batted his hand away, mentally pushing down the giddiness that was crawling around in the pit of my stomach. "Let's see if I can stand. And if not, you're totally carrying me to the hospital."

Maybe I couldn't get away with social ineptness, but flirting, flirting I would always take a chance with. I'm a Gemini; it's what I do best.

"…Excuse me?"

I sleepily returned his smirk from earlier. "My prince charming came to save me, didn't he? I'm certainly the damsel in distress and I…" I looked around the dark forest, frowning a little as the panic rose again-just a bit.

"Yeah, I don't even know how I got out here."

I childishly reached out my arms for him to help me up, snorting with laughter as he glared down at me. At that moment in time, we were in the middle of a forest, there might have been a road a few meters away and…

Forest of where exactly…? Something wasn't right here…

But I didn't get to figure out what wasn't right, because just then I attempted to stand up on the dry grass. Blacking out during the activity didn't help much. You know, unconsciousness tends to interfere with the thought process, and so on.

Some time later I woke up to the putrid smell of my grandma's house in the city. No, actually, the hospital. (Of course, duh.) The white sheets I lay on and walls helped me figure that out, aside from the smell. Not to mention the freaking scary doctor hovering over me that I quickly leaned away from with my heart lurching; he was wearing scrubs and had a stethoscope around his neck. Very doctor-like, I have to say.

What wasn't very doctor-ish about him was that he was staring me down passionately and I was thinking, hey, that's not really your job, get your torch thing to do the eye test or whatever or at least ask me out before you go about looking into my eyes like that; it's called courtesy.

Speaking of which-I knew that the person next to him had a large lack of said trait and took a look at him. I bet they would've gotten along well, that black haired doctor and him. The hot, definitely blonde and brown haired guy with an undercut. Who was apparently psychic. Okay, so hot and crazy-ooh his eyes were a honey color; awesome. I could deal with that. He'd totally carried me to the hospital. His arms were pretty thick and muscled with the vein thing sticking out a bit, despite his lean figure. How lovely. (Oh yeah~.*Highfive*)

After reassuring myself that the intense dude with white overalls really was a doctor (I sure hoped so anyway) I loosened up my stiffened shoulders and lay back down on the bed which creaked under my weight, gazing back at menacing grey orbs that were almost hidden beneath heavy eyelids. What an amazing view I had down there on that bed. Would you look at that; he trimmed his nose hairs daily, I could tell. How nice of him to take care of himself like that. I bet he used deodorant spray too-the quality kind.

"Hey there." I nodded slowly at him.

Was I on drugs? My voice sounded thick and sleepy. In fact, I was pretty sleepy. Sleep sounded amazing right around now; although I had probably just woken up. You know, being in a bed and all. I did remember that I'd passed out for some reason or other. Oh yeah, blood, there had been blood on my head. I did not consider touching y head at that moment. I would mot definitely scream like a… A banshee. Yeah. Banshee. They scream lots, don't they?

His accented voice was old sounding in contrast to his young appearance. "You're awake. Good. Where's your insurance?"

Ah yes: the joy of amazingly caring doctors. Clean you up right away-after you give them money in some shape or form. Then send you off home; that's their favourite part.

"I have no idea." I smiled up at him with my eyes half open as I slurred my speech. "In fact, I don't know where I am. Care to tell?"

His black eyebrows furrowed-even more than they had before, and that was probably just his normal face-and the hot psychic dude sitting in a seat beside him shifted uncomfortably.

"Brilliant. That's just what we need. Where'd you say you found him?" He continued staring at me while talking to HPD.

"Uh, just outside of Trost, in the woods." The doctor turned and glared at him.

"What the hell where you doing out there this late at night?"

"…I wanted to go for a walk. Felt like going to the woods. Nothing much to it, really." He shrugged his shoulders, cowering under piercing grey eyes but trying to hide his fear as he looked away, towards me. Such nice eyes…

"So that's where you are: Trost. This is Trost hospital, if you haven't figured that out. My name's Jean. And I don't know who this dude is."

He flicked a thumb at the doctor as he spoke, smiling at me. It seemed like he really liked showing his teeth. Gotta love a toothy smile (or so the toothpaste adverts say). And boy, what a smile it was.

So… Trost. Trost, Trost, Trost. Me and my parents went there for shopping trips sometimes. I didn't really like Trost, that was the impression I had from what I remembered, which wasn't much to go on. Uh, and um, that's about it really.

"I don't know why I'm in Trost."

The doctor scanned my face with his eyes narrowed. "This isn't a movie."

I tore my eyes from Jean's. "I'm aware of that, I think."

"So you really don't remember why you're here?"

Ah, the classic case of:

"Amnesia? Are you serious?" he hurled his clipboard onto the bed at my feet and bared his teeth. "We have to deal with you guys whether you've got insurance or not. Fuck. I really don't like you. This is going out of my pay check and you're not even paying me via government."

HPD, who was also known as Jean, but I quite liked my nickname for him since it fitted so perfectly, gave me a sly thumbs up as the doctor sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand. Because what's better than screwing the government over? Plus: tax revenge. I didn't pay it: but that wasn't to say I didn't give a damn.

I honestly didn't know what the hell was going on, but I was pretty sure I could live with it. Bring it on!

Or, you know.

Have "it" leave me with a fair amount of debt and an angry letter, explaining to my parents what had happened, and a detailed description of what an idiot I was and how I had short term amnesia. I couldn't seem to remember the last three years and obviously, I had no idea why.

I got an early discharge. Yeah, evidently it didn't exactly help that my dad was a well known doctor in Trost, as I was told that with a scowl by Dr. Levi. He was a disliked doctor, because he was "too nice" apparently. Translate that as being too good with women, even though he was married to my mom, and he always got some of the best work to do. Jinae may be fairly small but my dad had skills, as in: he had SKILLZ.

I didn't have my phone, since it was out of charge-I had no idea where any stuff I must've had with me had gone to, so no charger, zilch money, nowhere to go, no way to get home; nothing at all-and that phone was my only life-line to my dad and mum's phone number (which I had never made a point of remembering).

So I had to have a mighty fine field trip to… Guess where?

"Hey mum," Jean said as we walked though the red door of the detached house in the earliest hours of the cold morning; me with my newly bandaged and now, thankfully, bloodless head and Jean with his spare keys clinking in his long fingers.

"I'm home."


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Levi said to stay hydrated, and that I should have something a little sugary since I had lost a bit-more than it looked like, he said- of blood and because my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I was considering milking the situation and asking Jean to hold my hand. I'm not really sure what prevented me from doing so. Honestly I was so pumped up on drugs that I could barely feel my fingers or my feet as we walked out the hospital room.

I'm pretty sure Dr. Levi didn't mean for me to have some sort of blue canned energy drink from the hospital vending machine that had me up all night with a headache.

They were energy drinks that actually meant business. It was a busy business that included lots of Caffeine and Taurine. That wasn't what he meant, but it wasn't as if they were dishing out water. Plus; energy drinks had sugar. Two birds with one stone. Not that I would hurt a bird. I like birds. Geez, I think those drugs and drink were doing a number on me.

Up all night _where_, you ask?

In Jean's bed.

That's right. I SLEPT WITH A GUY.

Platonically.

But he was super cute to watch in my slight restless state with his furrowed brow and his lips twitching in a snarl, so that was fine by me. Plus, I'm Mr. Innocent, so I'm not exactly the kind of guy at sixteen years old who would bang a stranger. I mean, I wanted to, libido is a thing, you know. But "making love" was the sort of thing that *couples* did. And we're back to that circle time session of sex ed. Fun, fun times. They were painfully awkward times; since being taught with an old, stern faced teacher that made it impossible not to laugh.

Aaanyway, Jean had taken me to his home, albeit in the middle of the night, and his mother was naturally worried. Just ever, so, slightly…

"JEAN-BO WHO IS THIS BOY THAT YOU'RE BRININGING INTO MY HOUSE." I received a mother's death glare and HPD got the shaking of his life as soon as the red front door opened to reveal a plump woman that looked to be in her thirties. I will not guess her age for the sake of her pride. That is the Bodt way of life.

My mum was the pretty and sweet type of mum, and this woman seemed to be the "I will never let my baby grow up" kind of mum. I could just tell Jean loved the babying type of parent… Not.

"He's a friend! Leave him be!"

Current status: friends with HPD. This was news to me, and some that I liked hearing the sound of.

"Geez. He got whacked off the head somehow. He probably climbed a tree or something and had to go to hospital. Back off mum. Stop embarrassing me!" he protested, pushing at her mollycoddling hands as they smoothed down his rumpled t-shirt and his hair.

"HI I'M MARCO SORRY TO INTRUDE. MIND IF I CRASH HERE SINCE I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM?"

Their mothering to death scene was paused in a freeze frame as they both turned to look at me.

"DRUGS AND ENERGY DRINK AREN'T THE BEST MIX FOR ME, SORRY IF I'M A BITTY LOUD."

Bitty. I said bitty. I needed sleep. I needed to sink into the floor like the idiot I was. I gave a quieter, shaky laugh, looking anxiously at an irritated Jean who tugged me upstairs.

I never did sleep that night. When I saw the morning sun through the thin, pale curtains I had absolutely had it with my boredom. As entertaining as a snoozing Jean was, I needed something to do. I took his phone off the white bedside cabinet-he'd said I could use it, don't worry-and took a selfie with my tongue sticking out. It was just to let the HPD remember me from here on out. I may have saved it as his desktop picture.

Then I went online and looked up amnesia, how ironic: I remembered to do so. Ha. Ha. I think the drugs had worn off by that point. The drink was probably what was keeping me up.

As it turns out, I had had amnesia for longer than I realized. Sure, I had hit my head, god knows how, and that caused some brain damage, leading to the amnesia. But Google told me that things like disorientation-the incapability to get ones bearings-were one of the symptoms.

And guess who gets lost easily, and all the time.

Me.

I had probably been dropped as baby and no-one had the heart to tell me. It all made sense now. But knowing that I should probably go to a doctor again did nothing to prepare me for what Jean did next.

While sleeping beside me on his cozy double bed, he stole the blankets, cuddling them, and hooked a leg over my own, almost pining me to the bed and leaving me cold. The heating was off. That bastard. He slept on the side of his face, his cheek snuggling into the dark covers he hoarded and also into my left side. All I could do was become all gooey eyed and coo at him like a mother watching their child attempt to form words. Not that I myself could form words. Anything I said at that moment in time would have dissolved into the mattress in a fit of giggles and start a long round of "aww"-ing until he woke up and saw my staring. Back away Bodt, just back away…

With a content sigh, I reached over with one hand and caressed his cheek. I could totally get away with things like this when he was asleep. Social ineptness, headache and tiredness be damned. At least he seemed to be asleep, because he didn't stir much and wow was his skin soft. Like, dude, lend me your moisturizer, have no shame whatsoever in your beautifully clear and supple skin.

I looked back at the glare of the phone, squinting at the bright light as I pondered over what to do next.

OH. I had an idea, a clever idea.

Jinae may have been a small town, but its hospital took pride in having a website. A well maintained website, I might add, with notices of new children, posts celebrating the lives of the ones sadly lost and funny goings-on between the staff members, sometimes the patients too.

If only the news could be like that. Telling me that someone had died, as bad as it might sound, it didn't make me care for them as if I'd known them. I did care though, as the son of a doctor and as myself, I really did care.

Best of all: the website had contact details!

Sometime later, after many reassurances that "Yes, I am Mr. Bodt's son, no I'm not going to hold him for ransom-why would I do that?" I found myself on the line with my dad's mobile.

"Is that you Marco?" I heard his voice crack from sleep.

"It is. I have something to read to you, wait a second-"

I reached onto the floor, where I'd stashed my now crumpled letter. I coughed to begin.

"Dear Mr. Bodt and Mrs. Bodt, I am sorry to inform you that your son has received a blow to the head for unknown reasons and cannot be treated due to lack of insurance and identification.' Wait, there's more dad.

'As has been seen from a few head scans, he seems to have no internal bleeding, but unfortunately he seems to have suffered a case of short term amnesia. Either that; or the brat thought it'd be really "effing" funny to play a prank of the doctor. Signed, Doctor Levi. Kiss, kiss, hug. Oh, and he says we owe him money. And we may also need to get him coffee because we kept him up late when he wasn't being paid."

I let my dad process the information, and he chuckled so as not to wake my snoring mum beside him in their bed.

"Only you, eh Marco?"

"Well, I'm sure other people get amnesia from time to time…"

"Yeah but to think you were going out to find your soul mate, only to forget what you were doing!"

"What…?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm going to guess whoever found you must be your soul mate, he must've sensed you were in pain and found the right direction before you did."

"WHAT? What do you mean soulmate?!" I shouted in a whisper.

HPD was my freaking SOULMATE WHAT THE HECK?!

"I could be wrong you know, but that's most likely what's happened. Oh, where are you right now?"

"… I'm at a guy's house. He found me and took me in."

"Way to go-!"

"Dad!"

"Okay, okay, seeing as I didn't recognize this number, you're using his phone?"

I glanced over at the sleeping figure, still with a warm leg wrapped around my body and smiled. "Yeah, he let me. He's sleeping though."

"Okay, you had a hotel room booked Marco, and considering that we owe Trost hospital a small sum, apparently, I would recommend getting- Oh no, wait, I have an idea."

"Um, I'm not sure if I like the sound of this."

My dad's ideas weren't always the…most practical, to say it lightly.

"So, here it is: get booked out of that hotel, say to your soul mate's family that your family is away on holiday, and you uh… got kicked out of the hotel because of your fees that they didn't want to be sued for-just make something up for being unable to stay at that hotel- and…yeah. Have fun staying at your soul mate's house for a while."

I swear to god this man… Leaving me out in the wilderness of Trost city… I'd be dead by next week.

"By the way since you probably don't remember, the hotel is called Havenden Hotel, it's by the flower shop beside the water fountain uptown." Ah…yeah... Because I totally knew where that was…

"There are times when I love you, and this is not one of those times."

"I'm flattered, Marco. Now get some sleep, we aren't in different time zones. It's not even dawn yet." He yawned into the microphone.

"I haven't slept all night. I'm riding a sugar rush."

"… Is that the only thing you've ridden?"

"DAD!"

He chuckled, leaving me with a pang of homesickness for our cozy home in Jinae, a whole two hours away from here…

"I'll see you soon then, bye~" he cheerily hung up on me.

Putting the phone back onto the bedside cabinet, I wandered over to the window with a confident stride. Yes, a Bodt could be sly at times. Devious, even. I drew back the curtains, preparing for an undetermined amount of time with Jean by my side… My soul mate…

I'm not really sure how that worked, but I trusted my dad to be honest. I could probably ask him about it again at some point anyway. I pulled open the grey curtains onto an equally grey and dismal sky. Awesome.

"Ah," I sighed as the huddle on the bed called Jean groaned at the intrusion of light on his sleep. "What a beautiful day!" I said in my best English accent.

Soulmate… So that meant Jean was my other half? My fated partner? I grinned at him, hopping back into his bed with a bounce that made the metal creak beneath me. Now this could be interesting…


	4. Chapter 4

When Jean and I went downstairs, I wasn't expecting to feel so downright _attacked. _I mean, I could understand that I wasn't exactly a welcome visitor, what with the "Hi I'm just going to intrude on your cosy little home and go my merry way around your house". But still. I sat at the kitchen table, staring down awkwardly at the chestnut coloured wood and tried to make myself small because it was better than being given the stink eye...

They did have a really nice house though; it was clean and quite big, but not obnoxiously so. I think I may have spied some baby pictures on the windowsill hiding behind a pair of yellow curtains. Mental note: investigate that scene later.

Jean helped his mum find bowls for our cereal and continued to sigh as his mum's behaviour, which included glaring at me at any given opportunity. Dad wanted me to stay...here?

"Mum," Jean snapped. "I said, leave him be, didn't I? You're scaring him."

His mum might've had a son complex, but clearly he didn't fancy being a mamma's boy. She snorted a laugh, smoothing out the front of her beige dress and shooed him away, telling him he wanted to talk to me. He grumbled, carrying his bowl as he walked out and into the living room. I sheepishly glanced up at her, almost certain that she'd leap onto me as soon as he left the room.

Just as the ash coloured door closed and the T.V in the living room began to blare noise, his mum leaned against the counter next to the sink. I looked at it, eyeing up the bowl of cereal that I seriously hoped was for me. She didn't say anything, to my surprise. I didn't either, which is just as surprising. The only thing that broke the silence was the cuckoo clock on the wall that I didn't even know existed anymore. Maybe they existed in old Disney movies, but not in real life. The ticking sounded like a pencil being hit off the side of my head, and it certainly wasn't doing my insomnia induced headache a favour.

"Marco was it?" she said softly. I remembered my introduction... Ah yes, what a way to make a brilliant first impression, on your soul mate's family, no less.

I gave her a small smile while she looked me up and down. "That's right."

She paused for a few moments, perhaps glad or wondering why I wasn't shouting excitedly at her, before speaking up again while moving to sit opposite at the table.

"Last night, jean just dashed out of the house, saying something about "finding him" and "hearing his voice. So really, I wasn't honestly expecting someone to show up on my doorstep, with my son running around and getting you tablets and bandages." She grimaced slightly. "Not to mention, it was pretty late, and you were quite the wake-up call..." First impressions last, it seems...

Was she apologising? It sounded like she was excusing herself for glaring at me and getting worked up last night, demanding to know who I was and what I was doing with her son, and shouldn't Jean know better than to bring strangers home? Apparently not. Either way, I chuckled.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I'm never allowed energy drinks ever again, apparently." I tilted my head, scratching at my sweaty scalp. "Did you know he thinks he's psychic?"

"Well, yes, I would know, seeing as I told him that he was."

"...Huh?"

From what I'd seen from his cocky attitude, I'd assumed Jean had just given himself a label to explain the voices. My voice, he said he heard my voice...He had been for years... (Creepy) I kind of wanted to laugh; his mum was just as crazy as him. Perfect, just bloody perfect...

"You know...there's a myth that says that fated ones are connected by the red string of fate. Since you hear each other's voices, it's a bit like that, and you find each other by hearing the directions leading to them."

"I haven't heard his voice."

She raised an eyebrow. "You also have amnesia, so you've probably forgotten that you heard it."

Amnesia.

Amonamonesia.

That I did have.

"Okay...If you say so. When did you find Jean's dad then?" I hadn't heard from him at all since I'd come here.

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no, Jean's father wasn't my soul mate. I did hear his voice though, in this city, but I never found him. There were other though, that found theirs, and they explained that I wasn't crazy. That's actually why I let Jean out, when he said he had to find you. I didn't want him to miss out on a chance like that." She winced at the thought.

"Well then, why tell him that he was psychic? Couldn't you tell him what you told me about the myth or whatever?" My stomach growled, but nobody paid attention to it. Poor baby. Take a hint, Jean's mum. The cereal _had_ to be soggy by now...

She waved her hand in a gesture, as though she was swatting away the idea. "Oh, that boy wouldn't believe in such gush." And I did? Wow, thanks, lady. "Ever since my messy break up with his father, he's been bitter about relationships, never-mind true love."

There was a heavy lump forming in the back of my throat. True love. That was _heavy_, a _really_ heavy expectation for her to have of me... I barely even knew the guy, even if I was a bit attracted to him. He did look like the type to be bitter, to hold onto grudges way past their sell-by date and still be grumpy about it. And there was something off about him when he was with me, as though he was being reasonably friendly, but still really guarded, like he was being really careful about what he said.

Maybe she meant he was bitter about _all kinds_ of relationships.

She stood up and trudged over to the counter and waddled back to give me my bowl. Without saying another word, I dived into the bland flavour, before she could take it from me (I was STARVING).

Before she called Jean back into the room, I told her "I'll try explaining it to him, when he's ready. I might need to be able to remember hearing his voice though, just so he doesn't think I'm bluffing." And I also didn't want him to try to get together with the wrong person...

A short while later, Jean and I were outside in Trost's streets, with me wearing his clothes, since mine stank and were covered in mud. He'd insisted in taking me to the hotel since I was a) sick and b) completely clueless about the town and where to go. I thought, hey; that's pretty nice of him, but then I remembered: I wouldn't be able to tell him that I was being kicked out, because he would be there, and see that I was not being kicked out. Yes dad, your plans are still practical to this very day.

So I got dragged across town in the search of Havenden Hotel. Along the way, he was silent apart from when he said he knew where the hotel was. I couldn't think of anything to ask him, and the churning at the bottom of my stomach when I looked at his face, didn't help much either. I looked around, seeing piles upon piles of flowers in loads of different colours and shapes in flower beds by the path. As we went through the town centre, there were even more, hanging from baskets on lampposts and in plant pots that were the size of huge boxes.

"Your town sure has a lot of flowers, it's really nice." I told him cheerfully.

He grunted, pulling a face then stuffed his hands in his pockets as we walked. Man, did blue jeans and a grey shirt look nice on him... it really went with his hair colour.

"It's alright, but there's a load of junkies crawling around at night."

I watched as a breeze teased his hair, wondering how on earth he'd gone from a giddy kid to a grumpy teenager in one night. Maybe he was nocturnal... I sighed, looking in front of us to see a large water fountain.

"You braved the street brawlers for me then, cheers for that. Oh, and thanks for carrying me to the hospital. And thanks for everything else, too. I owe you too much to even list them all." But if I had listed them, it might have included me thanking him for being way too damn cute when he was sleeping. You get the idea.

"I couldn't just leave you there in the woods, my spidey senses were tingling and you looked like you could use a hand. 'Sides, sleeping outside would've been dangerous." He closed the conversation, striding in front me so that I only saw his back.

Even if he was a little grumpy, he was still nice, and that was good enough for me. I skipped to reach his side, pretending to be in awe as we reached the hotel that actually looked more like a bed and breakfast because it was so small.

We made our way to the front door, with my glancing at the well kept and very floral garden that matched the majority of the town, and walked inside. We were greeted by a pinched faced woman sitting behind a white desk with leaflets who was been staring into space as we walked in. She quickly sat upright, though not for professionalism.

She spoke nasally. "Are you Marco Bodt?" I nodded slowly, unsure as to why her eyes were narrowed in my direction.

"We found your key in the sitting area over there."

She nodded towards a dark blue walled area with chairs and a coffee table... I didn't remember even going to sit there... Of course I would lose the key, though. That's my thing.

"And when we went to find you in your room to invite you to dinner, the entire room was flooded."

My jaw dropped and I began rambling. "Are you serious?! Of course you are, um, look, I am so, so sorry. Uh, I'm not really sure if I can pay you back for the damage but I can try, I guess. I really hope no-one got hurt-"

"Listen," She snapped. "Since I'm _friends _with your _mum_, I _spoke_ to her, and she explained she'd be able to cover the costs. Unfortunately you won't be allowed to stay here any longer, Mr Bodt."

I lifted a shaky hand to my neck with my breathing still stuttering. "Are you sure my mum said that?"

"Yup."

"Aah. Great. Um..." The receptionist was looking at me, and I didn't know why, but it seemed meaningful. Like she was trying to-

Ooh no. She knew, as in, she knew the plan. On the bright side, at least my mum can cover for me when dad's plan goes haywire. A mother always knows.

I was given my bag that had been "salvaged from the flood" and threw it over my shoulder as I stumbled behind Jean.

"I can't go home." I said, speaking as though I had just realized that the science teacher had been wrong all along about the theory of probability, and that the sunrise wasn't going to appear tomorrow. "My dad's away on business and my mum's on holiday. I don't have the spare key.

Jean rolled his honey eyes at my drama, though he seemed to pity me and my helplessness since he took out his phone, presumably to call his mum.

At least, he'd been about to phone his mum, but then he saw the home screen.

"You're a little shit, you know that?" he shook his head in mock annoyance upon seeing my dorky face plastered over the screen.

"Thank you. Actually, you should be grateful that you can admire me all day on your phone."

"Yeah."

He lifted the phone to his ear; walking so that we headed back to his house. At least, I think we were headed there. I was seriously relying on this boy for my way back. If he hadn't come, and the high pitched receptionist hadn't known the plan, I would've been screwed in trying to get a bus back to Jinae. Thank goodness for mothers.

I may have collapsed on the way back. My bag was not a good cushion, although it did break my fall, according to Jean, as he had to yet again drag my sorry ass back to his home. I woke up on the living room couch this time and Jean's mum (I still didn't know her name; let's call her Jenny, the girl version of Jean.) hovered above me with what should've been a concerned expression, but was instead mildly irritated. Thanks, Jenny. Nice to see you care.

"You've found the most accident prone kid in the town, Jean. I fear for his life." You know what Jenny? I did too, I really did.

Because as it turns out: when I woke up, I remembered just how badly I could get lost and end up in dangerous places, such as the woods, all thanks to Jean and his direction giving.


	5. Chapter 5

I wanted to know what made Jean "tick".

For example, why was he bitter about love after his parents broke up?

Was he really nocturnal?

Or did he just naturally act nicer at night time, than during the day?

He did mention that there were drug dealers and junkies at night…

_Um… _

I really hoped I knew what I was getting into with this whole thing.

Oh yeah. I remembered everything now. How convenient of me.

Jean's mum, who I called Jenny, rolled her eyes at me when I had woken up on the couch, and told Jean that he had picked up the most accident prone person in Trost. I'm not sure how he responded, but it better have been nicely, because I was a poor, sick guest in his house. An uninvited guest, technically, but still.

Because the couch hadn't been the most comfortable place, I was moved to Jean's bed, where I promptly passed out again, still wearing his clothes. Though this time, not from head injuries or a random collapsing, thankfully. When I woke up again, Jean was sitting beside me on the bed, with his back against the headrest and a steaming plate of chips on his lap. When my eyesight focused properly, I saw that he had a book in his other hand.

That poor book would be covered in grease by the time he finished with it. That poor, poor book. I was mourning its loss already.

And how on _earth_ did he have such a good complexion if he ate chips like _that_?

I slipped one hand from under the blankets, discreetly reaching for his chips. He swatted my hand away, being careful to balance the plate so that nothing fell off it. Because God forbid what a burden it'd be if the chips fell off his plate and on the covers.

I had the urge to move his swatting fingers so that they were stroking my hair. But with those greasy fingers? Common sense told me no, on many levels.

"You're not going to give me one?" I pouted up at him as he continued to read his book with a scowl, and ignored me. "I haven't eaten since this morning; do me one thing, will ya?"

He looked down at me then, raising his eyebrow gloatingly. "You really want one?"

"Please." I moaned.

He threw it at my forehead, and I managed to catch it before it fell onto the covers. When I ate it, something was off about the chip.

"You poisoned this one. I can't believe you." I eyed the chip accusingly, then stole one off his plate and put it in my mouth as he protested, attempting to steal it back.

I gagged again at the flavour, putting the two uneaten chips on the side of his plate. "Oh my god, how are you eating these? They all taste weird. Although, if your mum made these, then they're perfectly… nice…"

I wasn't very good at lying, I can say that much.

With a loud, irritated sigh, Jean tossed his book onto the white bedside cabinet, and wiped his free hand on his jeans. He looked me directly in the eye with his honey eyes.

"They're covered in sugar, that's probably why you don't like them. Dumbass."

"In sugar…? That's, that's d-disgusting! And don't call me a dumbass, how was I supposed to know it'd have sugar on it?"

"Then don't take my food." he put the plate on the cabinet as well, well out of my reach.

I continued to persist. "I haven't had anything to eat all day!" That was a perfectly valid reason.

"Sleeping people don't eat. It's not my fault you were being lazy." That was not a valid reason, Jean.

I groaned at his stubbornness and face planted into the pillow while my stomach growled loudly as if to say 'YO JEAN I'M PRETTY DARN HUNGARY, YEAH?' At least, I hoped that that was the message Jean got from it. I waited, seeing if he'd get me something to eat.

Nothing.

I was very tempted to stick my tongue out at him. I lacked a resource of good comebacks and the motivation to say rude words or pull rude gestures. I was raised a good little boy, you know.

Then I had found the internet, ha.

It turns out that sex education doesn't teach you the _half _of it.

I snuggled my face into his pillow and my breathing hitched. I realized with a jolt that the whole bed smelled like Jean. More than it did of me, obviously. I'd only spent a night or so in there. It was so difficult to describe his smell, especially when it was over staged by the chips, but if I had to… I'd say it smelt of wheat, you know, like cereal bars?

I'm not actually sure… either, but at least he didn't smell like fart or onion soup, like a lot of other boys our age did. I liked his smell almost solely for that reason alone.

I was close to sleeping again, surrounded by the smell of wheat but then I remembered a)I was starving and b)I _REMEMBERED_, for once in my life.

I called out to him groggily, my voice muffled by the pillow. "Hey, Jean."

He hummed in reply from where he sat against the headboard. Were his eyes closed?

"So… I remember the more recent years of my life now, and that's useful."

"Uh huh."

"Aaand…"

I trailed off, unsure if I should tell him or not, about the soul mate business. When would he be ready? Probably not now. But… I had no idea when he'd be ready to hear it.

"Aaand'?" he mocked me, in question.

I couldn't call him HPD anymore. How sad, I liked that name. I mean, it was pretty darn embarrassing, but he didn't have to know about it.

"And, I recalled that I am also… psychic, as you put it?" I sank further into the pillow.

"…What?" He asked in wary surprise.

He poked my back and although it was a sharp, painful jab it sent shivers down my spine. I didn't realize I was a masochist, oh wow.

"Marco, dude, what did you say? You said you were psychic?"

"That I did."

"Really?" The bed creaked as he leaned over to look at me. "I don't think I believe you."

And that was how I found myself lost in the middle of the supermarket, not even thirty minutes later.

I roamed around the aisles, walking down the middle path where the aisles parted; my go to method of finding my parents whenever I lost them. "When." Yes, it happened often.

"Jean," I whined to myself and it echoed in the near empty shop. "Where'd you goooo?!"

Did you know that Jean is like the Cheshire cat? Not the Tim Burton version of it, of course, that thing's just plain creepy. Jean and the Cheshire cat both have almond shaped eyes that seem to glow in the dark, although they're different colours, and they are both TERRIBLE at giving directions.

Lo and behold: the voice, his voice, was back in my head as soon as he was more than five minutes away from me within the shop.

"You know, if you're lost, you could navigate your way through the stars. You will fiiind me, you will reeeeach me, if you follow my star~"

'GUESS WHAT JEAN I'M IN A SUPERMARKET.

THE ONLY STARS I CAN SEE ARE THE GLOW STARS.

SO STOP QUOTING THE CHEEKY GIRLS TO ME.

(Even if it is cheesily romantic and making me go red so that the few people in the shop start staring at me as I wander around aimlessly and whisper to myself.)'

Wait, did he mean to go the glow stars at the end of the children's toy aisle?

Finally, some progress in my understanding of this boy!

I had a skip in my step as I reached the end of the toy aisle.

Jean was nowhere to be seen. I looked down the children's toy aisle, then the one next to it that was full of stationary.

"Take a left at the toilets, then go upstairs." his boyish voice told me, and I knew he was totally ridiculing me in the most obnoxious way possible.

I sobbed as I looked upwards, aiming my frustration at the devil called Jean. "I don't even know where the toilets are, and why are you upstairs? Where are the stairs?!"

Eventually, I managed to find the front area, where the customer service desk was.

"Can a male named Jean please come to the front desk? Jean, please come to the front desk, thank you."

I thanked the man behind the counter, and hid my face from the other customers that were looking at me strangely. I was suffering the second hand embarrassment of calling someone out on the P.A system. My parents had to do it for me all the time. I now knew their pain. Then again. This time it was HIS fault for running away.

He bounced up to the desk, waving and grinning at me, while I did my best to scowl at him.

"Found you! Again."

"You know, I couldn't find you because you kept running away. One minute I was at the children's aisle, the next you were saying 'hey go upstairs!' without even telling me how to get upstairs." I complained to him as we walked out into the warm night.

His eyes widened, lighting up as though his eyes were the stars he'd told me to find-

Now that's just cheesy.

But in all honesty he really did look happy, if you took away the fact he also looked as though he was going to cry. I was going to cry too if he did.

_To think I'd once thought he was a pervert leering over my shoulder._

He nodded, sporting a half smile that he seemed to be trying to suppress. He breathed out a quiet laugh.

"You know, I thought I was crazy for a while, even after my mum told me I was just psychic. I wonder why it's only us, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know about us being psychic, Jean, can you read my mind?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

He gazed back at me, seemingly regarding me seriously with honey coloured eyes and a mind full of musings.

"I don't think so, but I can tell what you're feeling? I think I can feel it, too? Because at one point I got all panicky inside the shop for no reason, then annoyed, and it didn't make sense to me until I got called to the front desk. And you weren't looking very happy." he teased me.

I tilted my head. Oh. Okay then. Dad's theory about sensing my pain must've been right then. Did that mean we actually were slightly psychic? But I hadn't felt his emotions like he said he had for me…

"What did I say to you in your head?" I asked him curiously. Surely, surely I wouldn't sound as dumb as him, right? Please, let that be true.

He frowned at me, confusion playing over his features as though he was offended.

"You mean you're not actually telling me things telepathically?"

"Weren't you telling me things? We must not do it consciously, I guess."

He looked away, reaching up to rub his neck and shrugged. "I guess not."

I chuckled to myself and he glanced at me questionably as we walked back to his house, earlier than we had the previous night.

"I was just thinking… You say the most ridiculous things, and give me the most obscure directions. It's no wonder I couldn't find you!"

I didn't mention I'd been trying to find him too, the first time around. How was I supposed to? 'Hey, I got sent to Trost so I could find my soul mate because apparently there's a myth that connects us together via a GPS system in our minds! You're the lucky dude who's my soul mate! I sure hope you know that you're gay!'

That… That wouldn't go down well, I could tell.

We still needed to have the "So what are you into? Are you a 'bros before hoes' kind of guy?" talk. (In case you're wondering, that's exactly how my dad asked the question when I came out to my parents. There are times when I really do love that man. Seriously)

Jean scuffed the dirt on the path with his foot, biting his lip. Did he always bite his lip when he thought too much? After a while of walking in companionable silence, he spoke up again.

"Why's it only you that I get led to? Like, why's it only your voice I ever hear in my head? There's got to be a real reason, right?"

Because… We were soul mates? You know, there was the whole "destined to be together" ordeal we had going on?

"I have no idea whatsoever. Maybe it's because we were the only ones that were psychic at the same time? And place?"

Yeah… I was so totally "psychic" for Jean…

We made it home, and for the first time I was not unconscious or extremely hyper, much to Jenny's relief.

"What's your name, Miss?" Was the first thing I asked when I saw "Jenny" when Jean and I walked into the house.

"You're only asking me that now? What were you calling me before?"

"Um, I just referred to you as 'Jean's mum'."

I didn't think she'd be happy about me calling her Jenny. She and Jean had quite… equestrian features, so to speak…

"Well that's a bit of a mouthful isn't it?" Jean walked past us to go upstairs. "Just call me Lynne."

That was the second time I'd never been more satisfied to learn someone's name.

I followed Jean upstairs to his room, only just managing to tail him quickly enough so that I wouldn't lose my way again. The light settings were on low and there was a soft glow to Jean's room. I closed the door behind me.

Talk about a one sided feeling of sexual tension. Jesus.

Jean looked up from the bed that he had just jumped onto like a little kid. That confirmed it; he was nocturnal. Even if he did sleep through the night. Here was to hoping I could too. I went to sit beside him on the bed while he went back to his book and I sat there like an idiot, not doing anything.

I looked around his room, taking in the small bookshelf at the end of his bed, the wardrobe against the wall, the window with the curtains still open. For lack of better things to do, I walked over the window and shut the curtains, noting that outside was still quite light with the summer sun still hovering above the horizon.

"So uh, have you done anything good over the summer?" I asked him, making my way back to his bed.

"Summer homework, although I don't think that counts as good. I volunteered at a charity shop for like, a week, and then got kicked out because I "sassed one of the workers". They were old fogies, the whole lot of them. I don't think that counts either. Other than that, I've done absolutely nothing. And I like doing nothing, so that counts as good. Wish I had more time to do nothing. Then again, there are still a couple of weeks left to go. That's lots of time to do even more of nothing, right?"

I smiled at him, crossing my legs over as I watched him reading and talk. "A couple of weeks do seem like a lot of time, yeah."

"Okay." he gave up on his book, tossing it onto the now cluttered cabinet. "So how are we doing bed arrangements?"

Of course last night had been a fluke. Of course. Last night I was poorly. He had been nice to his poor, sick guest.

"I could go on the couch?" I volunteered. "If you're uncomfortable with me being in your bed that is…"

My shoulders sagged a little at the thought of being away from Jean and his cereal bar smell for a whole night, after having waited years to find him. I guess even soul mates had to keep a certain pace, huh… No "love at first sight" for us, then? How did that even work? In the movies when it was love at first sight, the couple practically got married straight away, or the guy went off to save the girl from a dragon, depending on the kind of film. Usually Disney did that sort of stuff, right?

"Don't cry about it, jeez, take the bed if you want." he made his way to walk out the room. I grabbed his wrist, feeling my face burn ashamedly.

"There's also the option of sleeping in the same bed, though, right? It's big enough… And it'd be just like a sleepover." I gulped, hoping he wouldn't hear it as I looked down at the bed, pretending to assess it.

Jean narrowed his eyes at me, nodding down at me with a flushed face. "You just keep telling yourself that."

When he left the room, I looked down, and sure enough; my trousers were _much_ tighter than they should've been. Noticeably so. I toppled onto the blankets and gave a small, manly yell into them. It didn't help. At all. Then the door swung open and Jean hurriedly came back in, shoving me off his bed.

"On second thought, get downstairs, you horny little bastard. I'm not having you cum in my bed. Get out. Go on, get."

I rose from the pillow, batting away his hands. "I'm _sorry_! It's not like I can help it! I happen to be a _man_ as well, y'know! Things like this happen…" My voice broke. "Even to good people like me…"

_Especially_ to good people like me.

We ended up sharing the bed, much to both our displeasure, because Lynne didn't want me on the couch or the floor, and they didn't have a guest room.

She knew. She knew, and she was using it against me.

He made me go to the bathroom so he could get changed. He had seen through my innocent guy act; I can't tell if I was flattered or shocked that I could no longer use this against him.

"Keep your dick away from me." Jean mumbled before he fell asleep, scooting as far away as he could.

I scoffed at him as we lay in the dark. "Learn from your own advice. I'm being infected with all your dick-ish personality, Jean." I sighed dramatically, flopping into the pillow.

"I think that's the only word I've heard you use that is barely considered a swear word."

"What? You mean the word Jean? It's blasphemy, I know, please forgive me, Father." I clasped my hands together in mock prayer and stared up at the ceiling.

And that was when I realized that, thanks to me and our shared mental connection that he felt more than I did; he had probably been horny too.

If we were really connected mentally, I honestly couldn't wait to rile him up further.


	6. Chapter 6

My name is Marco Bodt, I'm sixteen years old and I am a self declared "innocent guy".

I was stripped of that title by Jean Kirstein.

Also known as, by me; Hot Psychic Dude.

I was in a house two hours away from my home in Jinae, and I had been beaten to the chase in my conquest to rile up Jean (read: make him horny again).

When I woke up to the dawn chorus, it took me a second to realize that that was not the only morning song I could hear.

Lying beside Jean, my chest was heaving from the heat of two bodies in a double bed. My legs were pinned down by his leg, and he was shivering as he whimpered musically, right by my ear so that I could feel every exhale against my skin.

Libido is a thing, and it is a terrible, terrible thing when you are a sixteen year old that is sleeping right next to his crush.

I groaned quietly, trying to move so that I could stop feeling so horny. My hips twitched as he pinned me down further, rubbing himself against my thigh. It had all been my fault. I'd ended up having a wet dream, only to wake up to have Jean experience one too, thanks to our mental connection.

Well, I'd managed to rile him up… but it had seemingly backfired.

I was going to have to wait until he came to (hopefully not the white, sticky kind of "come to") or you know…

I could return the gyrating with some of my own…

That was how I lost my innocent mindset. But my body had other ideas, sadly for my unattended dick.

I reached an arm out to touch his face and he shuddered under the touch, making me bite my lip when I realized that his erotic face was certainly… erotic… His lips were red and parted from panting, his scowl was smoothed out his usual scowl into a pained looking expression of flushed pleasure. And when he whined a high pitched wail, I had to squeeze my thighs together to restrain myself. God did he sound good, so good.

Why did I reach out to touch his face? So I could pinch his nose.

My parents loved that method of being woken up; on Christmas day, my birthday, that one time when I had to drag my dad out at three am to get the new game from the store…

Eventually, Jean frowned in his sleep, tried swatting my hand away like it was a fly, then eventually snorted and was startled awake.

His eyes flew open when I said, "Yeah Jean, you're amazing at using your own advice… "Keep your dick away from me" as you said last night. That's what you said. And yet here we are…"

Jean yelped, or shrieked, rather. He tore himself from me, his bare leg (he was only wearing boxers, because of the heat, he'd told me the previous night.) peeled from mine like an easy peel sticker, and he stole the blankets to hide himself in a sleepy/bashfully-horny Jean burrito. I was left in the cold of the bedroom. It helped my… situation down there, thankfully.

"I-I'm so, so, so, sorry. Marco, I didn't-"

"Eh, we're men, it happens, yeah? Even to the best of us."

A muffled groan came from the hoard of blankets. "Especially to the worst of us, ya mean."

I let out a breathy chuckle, concentrating on the ceiling and not the adorable ball beside me, still feeling my body twitch. "You're not the worst, just a little bit bad. 'Sides, I think it's my fault. I ended up-"

Yeah… Probably not the best idea to tell him "So; last night I dreamt I rode your dick after sucking it and considered using your body to help me masturbate in the morning when I woke up to your lewd moaning."

"E-ended up dreaming of, uh, that kind of stuff. And we seem to share an emotions thing, so, that's why you got the worst of it. I'm guessing. Though you more than me, dunno why though. Maybe something different happens for me? Huh. Wonder-"

"Early bird, shut up."

Ah. Not a morning person.

"… Just be glad the early bird didn't try to get the worm." That made him laugh. And so; the awkwardness was lifted.

A few hours later after avoiding each other's lingering gazes, we were told by Lynne (I remembered her name!) to do the weeding outside.

And by lingering gazes, I mean I ogled him whenever he wasn't looking, and he kept eyeing up my ass when he thought I wouldn't see him do so. At least, I think he was. It could've been just me and my over active imagination.

Jean had a nice front garden. It was pretty simple layout, with a large rectangle of grass on each side of the path with a border of flowers, and a couple of shrubs in the middle of the grass.

In the corner of the garden, a few paces along from the front gate, there was a blossom tree void of flowers tucked away, protected from the outside world by a waist high fence made from the tree's family members. I bet it looked nice in spring; summer didn't do blossom trees much justice apart from the red, sour cherries.

As we walked outside, Jean handed me a thick glove, actively trying not to look at my face. I had thought my awesome early bird and the worm joke had made everything better between us, but nooo.

Jean just had to be awkward…because I was awkward… and I still couldn't get his hot mess of a face from that morning out my mind.

Wearing my own clothes, I knelt onto the grass in my shorts and set to pick out the mini weeds between the sweet pea's in front of me. The birds chirped in the tree, filling in the silence for us, since I couldn't think of anything witty to say to make Jean laugh again, and Jean was nocturnal, so he probably couldn't tell jokes during the day.

Eventually, I got tired of my weeding, sat down properly and turned to look around, relishing the warm summer sun and blue skies above us. Jean was a few feet away from me, frowning at his patch of weeds in the soil, narrowing his eyes as though the weeds were going to jump out and eat his face off. I sighed, feeling the threads of grass brush under my fingers on my gloveless hand.

I was staring at the whorls in the fence, lost in thought, when Jean cleared his throat so I would look at him.

"You just gonna sit on your ass and do nothing?"

I rolled my eyes. "I finished, thanks for congratulating your guest on his efforts." He opened his mouth to retort, then saw that I actually was done and grimaced in annoyance.

"Can we go do something else now? I'm sure your mum won't mind us going around town, right?" I asked him with big puppy dog eyes.

He huffed, putting his hands on his hips to show he wasn't falling for my act. "Yeah, yeah. You know what I can feel from you now? It's a feeling called 'He'll fall for my purity and then he'll buy me a drink'."

"Will you?"

His shoulders drooped and he sighed. "Only because I want one too, and because it's buy one get one free at Corporal's Café. Don't go about thinking you're going to get this treatment from me all the time, or anything like that."

"I'm pretty sure I deserve a drink, since you were the one that made me thirsty this morning."

Shameless flirting is my speciality. Can you tell? I think it's slightly obvious.

Jean ended up leading me into a café that looked like a mix between a vintage study room and a bakery. The shelves were a sandy colour, much like Jean's hair and his cereal bar smell was drowned out by the aroma of freshly baked bread.

If this were a cartoon, I would've found myself floating, following a trail of the smell as I gravitated towards the source. There were bookshelves beside me as I walked through the door, showcasing bottles of syrup, sauces and packets of pastries.

"Huh, I didn't expect you to take me to a bread shop." I pursed my lips in interest.

"No," he pointed into the shop, directing my gaze to the tables. "You can buy stuff at the counter, like the pastries or the bread. Or, you can sit inside, outside, and order stuff like soup and sandwiches."

He motioned for us to go and sit at an ash coloured table for the two of us. "I take it we're staying inside then?"

"It's too hot outside." he grumbled, sitting opposite me, and grabbed a menu from the stand in the middle of the table, beside a flower pot with a simple daisy.

"So uh," I rubbed my neck, feeling my palm grow sticky. "Do you go here that often? I'm guessing the food is good if you're taking me here."

"Not really, only when I'm feeling poor." he sneered at the menu.

… I thought he felt what I felt? Either he was ignoring my chatty mood, or he didn't feel it.

"Why do you feel poor?"

He lowered his eyelids and deadpanned "Because everything you say is really rich coming from you."

I balked. "What-"

"Wait, no, no," his eyes widened, his hands almost reaching over to me to reassure me, like some frantically unsure dad trying to stop their kid from crying after they popped their balloon.

"I was just doing that for the joke. Yeah, that was a bad one. Uh, yeah, I was just looking for something to say, you know? Something funny. I'm crap at being funny, and you're pretty hilarious and it's hard to compete-"

He stopped suddenly, his face becoming more red as I stared at him in confusion. Jean hid his reddening face in his hands and mumbled, "I give up I give up I can't fucking talk like a normal person I'm sorry."

I tilted my head, a small smile beginning to form. "I thought you were just being grumpy."

He moved his hands away. "No, you're right about that, but I just wasn't saying much yesterday, or today, because I didn't know what to say, please, don't think I'm a bad person."

I laughed, making people turn to look at us, but I didn't really care. "You're not a bad person! Why would you think that? It's okay to be a little shy in front of a stranger." I grinned at him.

He dropped his hands onto the table, slouching back into the seat as he relaxed his expression into something so fond, it had my heart skipping like schoolgirl with a jump rope.

"Your happiness is contagious, even without the psychic stuff. I'm glad."

Just then, a waitress came and Jean's gaze flickered to her. "Oh, hey, Sasha."


	7. Chapter 7

This is the longest chapter i've written for this, wow. Sorry for the delay again! Time just flew. Enjoy!~

* * *

Sasha. Sasha Braus. How on earth do I explain this girl?

The waitress Jean said 'hi' to, suddenly shoved her face into mine, leaving us only a few centimeters apart and the invasion of personal space had me dropping my menu with a clatter onto the table. She then growled; teeth bared and brown eyebrows burrowed, and a chocolate coloured ponytail flicked in my face like an attack of feathers as she hollered "MR. SPRINGER!"

She spun back round to face me, hair whipping me in the face yet again, still glaring at me for some reason. Then, with one hand on her hip, she stuck a hand down the front pocket of her apron and pulled out a steaming hot potato.

Now, I'd understand if she pulled out a... loaf of bread or something, considering this place was a bread shop.

But a potato?

"This is Sasha Braus. She's a crazy childhood friend of mine that taught me how to hunt and survive out in the wild like Bear Grylls, but without the camera crew. I'm obviously better looking than him as a result." Jean slouched in the wooden chair, crossing his arms over his t-shirt. He smirked upon seeing my confused expression. She had a stash of potatoes in her apron?!

"I THINK YOU MEAN MR. SPRINGER-BRAUS, GOOD SIR." A short guy with a buzzcut, in a black apron and white polo shirt like Sasha, swaggered up to our table with a huge grin. He had a pink coloured plaster on his chin that he scratched after he kissed Sasha on the cheek.

Jean nodded at him. "Hey to you too, Connie."

"You're the first person Jean's brought with him here. Explain yourself!" Sasha slammed her hands on the table, making some of the other customers look at us.

I chuckled nervously, reaching to my neck to rub it like I usually did when I got nervous. "Um, I'm Marco. Nice to meet you!" That's right Marco, just say your name, and remember your manners and all will be well…

"NO! None of that small talk! We need answers!" Sasha leaned forward, and Connie put an arm on her shoulder, making me think he would pull her back, but instead he joined her in her interrogation.

"You already have Jean under your spell; please teach us your ways, master." Connie blue eyes widened excitedly as he bit his lip with two large front teeth.

Under my spell? The only spell of mine I could think of was my spell of amnesia…

I glanced at Jean warily, but he didn't seem to care in the least. "Connie is Sasha's boyfriend. Although, they act so much alike and are together so often that I have this theory that they were actually once literally joined at the hip." he said, finishing with a yawn. HE was yawning? I was the one that had woken up first!

But… what a decent awakening it had been. Like, I didn't really enjoy my lack of freedom, but still. Who doesn't want a hot guy with blonde hair with a leg draped over them, one that's good at seducing their roommate at six in the morning…?

I did. I think I'd just pretend to sleep next time and do it to him. See how he likes it.

Since Jean wasn't going to save me, I had to come up with some reason, some way of saving myself... How would I explain, "hey so I stumbled into the woods looking for him even though I didn't know I was looking for him in particular and ended up finding him by a one in a seven billion chances? Oh, and not forgetting that he dragged me to the hospital after I passed out."

What a beautiful first meeting. I wouldn't have it any other way. Although, one moment of consciousness when he had been carrying me might've been good…

I'd settle for the next best thing, as revenge for this morning (even though he was hardly responsible for my suppressed desires. Still, he had ACTED on them, so I was still the better man.)

"He brought me here because he said there were people here that he wanted to invite to the wedding." I smiled up at them cheekily. "I can't believe he never mentioned me before!"

Jean just looked at me with his eyebrows twitching in confusion. "...Eh?"

"Yeah, it's in four months. I wanted a winter wedding, ain't that right Jean-Bo?" I put my elbow in the table, leaning my face into my hand as I peered up at him from beneath my eyelashes.

Mothers have the most creative names for their children. Credit goes to Lynne Kirstein and her habit of being extra mumsy.

Oh but a winter wedding, with snowy grounds and ice sculptures, both of us laughing as we sneezed through our vows…

Jean, I really want a winter wedding, please please please!

Sasha perked up, pounding a fist over her heart in a salute. "I volunteer as tribute to be the best man!"

Connie straightened his back up, and then fell into a swift curtsy, using the apron as a skirt. "I'd be honored to be the flower girl."

I grinned lopsidedly, leaning back in my chair and laughing internally at their easy going nature as they played along with the joke. "Consider yourself hired."

Sasha rubbed her chest, mumbling about how she'd hit herself too hard and Connie scratched his plaster, telling her she was an idiot. Jean buried his head in his hands, groaning in dismay.

"I can't fucking bring you anywhere, can I?" he groaned at me.

"Nah, you don't really bring me anywhere, I just follow you around like a lovesick puppy."

"Ay, Sasha, go get us some drinks? The buy one get one free drinks? It's boiling out there." he moved one hand away from his face, covering his view of me.

I watched as Sasha trotted away, after giving the Marines' salute, and noticed a tattoo on her inner forearm of a golden compass. Huh, she didn't seem like the type to get a tattoo. I looked back at the table, where Jean and Connie were talking.

"Dude, did you get into a fight?" Jean tapped at his chin, in the same place as Connie's tattoo, with a sympathetic wince.

Connie's smile faltered as he cringed. "Uh... No, it's just hiding a really bad zit."

I think Connie was one of those people that others liked because he was honest. Embarrassingly so. Still, at least he had guts. Not a lot of guys can own up to having skin problems.

"How'd you know Jean, Connie?" I clasped my hands together, leaning my chin on my knuckles.

The buzz-cut boy shook his head nostalgically, leaning onto the table with stretched out arms. "Through Sasha. Boy, was the day we met a field trip." he glanced at Jean, smiling toothily.

"At first I thought, wow, that guy really has a stick up his ass. I may have accidentally said that out loud. Aaand, he may have said that although he wouldn't mind that, I wasn't really his type."

He was implying Jean was gay. That was the first I'd heard of this.

I liked this fact.

Plus, he went about it so brilliantly. He wanted a stick up his ass, ha, I volunteer as tribute! (I didn't just think that. Dear god. Blame Sasha)

With a showy jump, Connie held out his arms, as though he was presenting me to a crowd. "And then there's you, with your plans of marriage! I didn't know the two toned idiot dug freckles and muscles." he rolled his eyes and threw up his arms in an "I give up" gesture. "Because clearly, I am lacking in both areas."

I flushed, feeling the heat crawl up my neck as I coughed lightly. "He likes early risers too."

I... may have been pushing my jokes a little too far, because Connie raised his eyes in surprise. "Wait, were you being serious about the marriage-"

"No, Marco's just being a weirdo." Jean scowled at me. Yeah, maybe I should just stop talking now.

Just then, something clicked. I cocked my head at Connie, who had his arms by his sides, and I thought for sure I'd seen something on his arms.

"Did you and Sasha get matching tattoos?"

Connie's eyes widened, meeting my own as he raced to hide it, but not before I noticed that the dial on his compass tattoo... moved? I think it... moved towards the direction behind him.

Sasha appeared with the drinks, and a stern shout called from the till at the front of the shop. "Connie! Stop talking to Jean! I'm paying you by the hour and the dishes still haven't been done."

Connie squeaked that he was coming, placed a peck on Sasha's cheek as he left us, and Sasha placed the drinks on the table with a small smile, tucking her tray under her arm. Jean dove in, grabbing his drink and sucking greedily on the straw of what seemed to be a tall glass of pink lemonade.

"You never told me you guys had the same tattoo." he said between slurps.

Sasha rolled her eyes, shaking her head in annoyance. "To think I've known you all these years, and you still can't find things out by yourself. Aren't friends supposed to learn things about each other without having to tell them anything?"

She held out her arm. "I mean, it's obviously there in plain view, it has been for years, and Marco picked up on it as soon as he saw it."

"Ah, I just happen to be observant!" I forced a smile at her, worried she might start a fight with Jean. "But still, why did you get a tattoo?"

With a coy grin she leaned down at the table so that she was almost kneeling beside me at the table.

"Well, it's supposed to show how happy I am that I found him."

She was implying they were soul mates?! But, I thought, with me and Jean, the GPS system… There are other ways? That's so cool!

"Oh really?! Us too! I'm so happy for you guys!" I beamed at her, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Her jaw dropped and her eyes bulged slightly. "Wait, you guys, you found each other with the-"

"Psychic connection. That's right. Although, this guy kept getting lost, so it took me for-fucking-ever to find him. And when I did, he was in the middle of the forest at two in the morning with a huge lump gouged out his head."

"Hey, it wasn't that bad, I mean, I wouldn't be here if I had half my head missing."

"Marco," he growled my name. ... I may have liked the way he said it, and it reminded me of the huskiness of his morning voice. "You forgot yourself for, like, a whole day, and you passed out in the middle of the street. I had to stop some woman from calling the police because she thought I hit you!"

"Oh my god this is amazing. My baby has found THE someone! Hey, …what do you mean forgot? Did Marco get amnesia? I know that can happen after you hit your head really hard, though isn't that only in movies?"

I nodded, raising my eyebrows as I blew out a long breath. "I still have it, as far as I'm aware, always have done. But somehow I hurt my head and that must've made it worse, temporarily. As for the movies-"

"BRAUS!" Sasha flinched and looked over her shoulder fearfully.

"Aah man. As much as I'd love to talk with ya and your hubby to be, I very much value my life. As endangered as it may be right now... See you around!" She skipped away to the till. "Oh, and don't forget to pay this time Jean! I'm not going to bail you out this time."

I sank into my chair from sheer exhaustion, surprised to see Jean doing the exact same, blowing raspberries like an impatient horse from tiredness. Yeah, I still feel bad for calling Lynne 'Jenny', seeing as it basically means horse. But, I guess they do kinda look like horses.

"Geez, and I thought I talked a lot." I sagged further into my chair.

"You do, and now you know my pain."

I kicked him under the table, trying to hide my smile beneath a glower. "Shush, you. Oh, and what was that about forgetting to pay your drink?"

"... That, that was that one time where I chanced it and just walked out the door since they were so busy at the till." he smiled smugly to himself.

I gasped in mock horror, covering my 'o' shaped mouth with a hand. "You're, you're a-"

"Go on. Just say it. You know what I am."

"A juvenile delinquent."

The time we spent at the cafe was worthwhile. It took him a lot of coaxing and a day or so to master, but I'd finally gotten Jean to talk.

He just didn't know what to say? Wow, and I thought being socially awkward was supposed to be well, awkward, not cute and make a person so adorably flustered.

Even though it might not have been about him, Jean had stories, particularly about Sasha and Connie getting into trouble all the time. He told me their parents and his mum was friends and had been ever since she moved to the town.

Were they the people Lynne had spoken about, the ones she said had explained to her about the soul-mate thing? I had to talk to them, they had to know more than I did about this, at least.

He did mention a couple of things about himself, like how he actually liked Connie's little sisters, even though he pretended not to. He couldn't help himself from adoring them when they latched onto his arm when he sat on the couch, and used his legs as a slide.

But he didn't want kids. "Jesus, no," he'd said. "I would be a terrible dad. I'd spoil them way too much."

"You'd be the fun parent. Everyone loves the fun parent."

He sighed inwardly, hissing through his teeth. "Not when they can't take responsibility." He may think he lacked responsibility, but this time he paid for his drink so it couldn't be too bad.

Right now though, Jean was sitting with me on his bed, trying to play travel scrabble.

"Marco, "rewards" isn't spelled with a 'z'."

I gave a haughty laugh. "It is when your phone is with the Vodafone network and you get Freebee Rewardz. So yes, it's spelled with a 'z'."

The sun was setting outside his window, so even Jean's exasperated face looked softer. Lynne was away at work, at a bar, apparently. Now normally I'd be a little overwhelmed about the possibilities of a burglary, or in this case the certain kinds of possible things that could happen with two, hormonal, teenage boys in a house, alone...

But I don't think the atmosphere worked when only one of us was thinking about it, and we were both... being domestic and playing scrabble. And rewards -rewardz- was totally spelled with a z.

He let out a long sigh, apparently giving up with the game as he tipped the contents of the game into the mini purple bag. I pouted at him.

"No need to be such a sore loser, Jean." my bottom lip trembled for dramatic effect.

He threw the bag and the game board onto the floor with a quiet thud. "Yeah, well, I got bored." Why thank you. I find your company during games fun too, Jean.

We sat on his bed, a little awkwardly, I might add, since both of us were tired...

But after that morning? Maybe sleeping together might not be such a good idea.

Hey, I might have been the cause of the whole fiasco but I wasn't the one violently gyrating against someone's leg!

Jean slipped under the covers fully clothed, kicking my ass from beneath as I still sat on the edge. I joined him under the covers and he got out his ipod, giving me one earphone.

"Tonight's entertainment: Marco's reactions to my music taste." he whispered in an Australian accent. I think he was trying to compete with my English accent from yesterday morning.

The music was certainly interesting...

"All I hear is noise, I don't get it."

Jean laughed in my face, accidentally pulling out an earphone that I felt little reluctant to put back into my lobe. "It sounds like everything, and yet... it's nothing."

"You mean it's crap?"

I hesitated too long. He laughed. "It's okay. It's called Seapunk music. I don't even like it. I just downloaded it for shits and giggles." he pressed the skip button. "Ah, now this is something I actually like, so you better not make fun of me." I put the earphone back in obediently.

Paramore came on, a band I'd heard of but had never really listened to. It seemed to be rock, but with a girl singing... it worked, I'm not sure how, but it worked. Jean had a couple of albums by them, so he said.

It wasn't really the sort of stuff you'd listen to at a party, more like the sort of thing you listen to by yourself because you want to feel music, rather than have something to dance to, although the guitars had a good rhythm to them. Maybe... a mosh pit would be a better place for it? Or is that too metal?

I like things like Michael Jackson; don't trust my judgment on this.

A slower song came on after a few minutes of the two of us lying in the bed. Jean shuffled, so that he was facing me. His face relaxed when the song started as though it had been just what he needed after a long, hard day, even though he was still pretty bummed about it all. He breathed a puff of air on me. It's surprising how different things feel when it comes to a different situation. Just.. Air. It didn't really make me shiver or get all hot when I felt it on my neck.

"You know," I blocked out the music to listen to him as he spoke. "Sasha and Connie... I think they might break up."

My body stiffened and I frowned at him. "Why?"

He paused, looking pained as he creased his eyebrows and looked behind me, trying to avoid my gaze. "Well, the thing is, is that they're both... Ace. D'you know what that means?"

I nodded, surprised at the news since.. well, they were both really affectionate with each other, kissing and all.

"But... it's in a different way from each other, since Connie's asexual and Sasha's aromantic. They both go to me, telling me that they're worried that they can't make each other happy. Sasha's worried that Connie thinks she just wants him for sex, and Connie doesn't want Sasha to be bored of him because he doesn't ever want to do it." Jean gulped loudly, making the adam's apple in his throat bob.

"I'm... a little sick of being their love councillor or whatever. I still want them to be happy, so I'll help them, but I'm just one step away from telling them that they're better off just splitting up. I did, once, but then Sasha went away on holiday when they'd agreed to go on a break, and Connie started having seizures -he hadn't had them since he met Sasha- and it wasn't until she came back, running to his hospital bed at one in the morning that they stopped."

He shook his head frustration beginning to seep into his confusion. "It's like they're platonicly dating, for the sake of Connie being safe."

His breathing hitched, ever so slightly, and I wouldn't have noticed if our faces hadn't been so close.

"Why are they pretending? They shouldn't tell each other they love each other if they don't. So yeah, that's why I reckon they'll break up." He finished almost casually, but the words stuck in his throat.

_Maybe I know somewhere, deep in my soul that love never lasts_.

Pretending? The thought hadn't even occurred to me. But then again... why were two ace people dating, especially when they were on opposite sides of the spectrum when it came to that sort of thing?

Sure, the soul mate thing might tie them together, but why would something made by destiny be hurting them so much?

Why were they letting it hurt them?

"I don't want to have them come crying to me again. I've seen enough tears because of shitty relationships, and they don't deserve that."

_And we've got to find other ways to make it on our own, or keep a straight face_.

"Jean..." I bit my lip, trying to think of the right words. "I'm not sure why they're dating. But I have a feeling they can learn from each other, seeing as they don't know what it's like to... want someone, in their own ways. And they can maybe explain, plus since they're so close, they might understand it a little better, even if they don't feel it. They seem really happy, too."

He shook his head, hiding his face under the covers, apparently ignoring me. "There's no point in relationships. They always end, and everyone always gets hurt. 'S'why I never bother with 'em. Too much drama. It's not like love is real, anyway. We're better off just making ourselves happy."

_And I've always lived like this, keeping a comfortable distance..._

"Is that to do with your parents? Did those two breaking up make you think love doesn't last?"

_And up until now I had sworn to myself that I was content with loneliness, because none of it was ever worth the risk._

His next words sounded loaded, full of things that had me thinking he was hoping I would understand the things between the lines.

"Maybe. I don't like talking about it much."

_But you are the only exception._

Lucky for him, I'm an observant person.

We fell asleep like that, fully clothed (protected from sleeping sexual predators with our mutual denim material) and with one earphone in an ear, playing music until I woke up to death metal in the middle of the night and almost threw the ipod across the room.

Almost. I almost did. But since I value my life and respected Jean's items, it only ended up on the floor. On the other side of the room. I didn't think about what I was doing when I went back to the warmth of the bed. I was drowsy, my eyes were heavy and I was not in a good mood, instinctively reaching an arm over Jean's waist as though he were my teddy (I'm not SAYING that I still have teddies... but I might do.)

I peered at his face in the darkness, the window making one side of his face glow. I moved my arm up and traced the curve of his pale cheek with my thumb. I gazed at him side on from my pillow. I couldn't believe it turned out that Jean was lot more thoughtful than I gave him credit for.

He was a little more bitter than I hoped for, but… even knowing that that was how it was helped me understand where things were with him, what I needed to do, and how to help him… Hopefully.

"There's a lot you haven't let yourself feel, Jean, things you haven't went out to do, or find out. And unless you break down the things that're stopping you from wanting to explore, and loving someone, you won't find it. But trust me, it's out there. If you look you'll find love all over the place. It could be that… it's right here, too." I blushed with my mouth lazily curving upwards, my thumb stopping slightly on his face.

"It's like when you get a dog, and suddenly you start seeing a ton of people have dogs when you go out to walk yours. I'm… pretty sure there are times where people never stop loving each other, even when they separate or when they want different things. And things like falling out of love can just… happen, I guess. Is that what happened with your parents? But, see, that's not always the case, Jean." I sighed, closing my eyes as I withdrew my hand, burying my face into the covers.

"One day, maybe it won't be any time soon, I want you to believe me when I say that."


	8. Chapter 8

_One of you summoned me at half past seven this morning?!_

* * *

I stood on the garden path as Jean spoke to me from the door. He was dressed in a humble grey hoodie and denim blue jeans with _adorably_ hooded eyes and a small, pink lipped pout that had me thinking "now that's just not fair".

Jean is not a morning person. He's supposed to have bags under his eyes and more cowlicks than Robert Pattison on a regular day.

I clamped my lips together to hide a dorky smile- I have a habit of doing that now, but you know what? I don't think Jean would've even cared.

He totally loved my smiles. Yeah. Even _I_ like my smiles. They're sweet as hell.

Jean cleared his throat. "You can just head off towards town; I'll catch up to you when I'm finished cleaning my roo-"

"JEAN-BO _NOW_!"

The door was slammed. "YES! JESUS-FUCKING-CHRIST, WOMAN! I'M GOING!" Was what I heard through three inches of wood. The door. I heard him through the door. I am emphasising that his voice was loud.

Okay, so I wasn't really awake. Tiredness makes me think everyone's an idiot. Is Scrabble supposed to do that to you?

Then again, it was _Travel _Scrabble. And I gave a long pep talk to Jean's sleeping body. Good advice takes it out of you, I guess. Especially when it goes ignored-

"…._DARE_ TALK TO ME LIKE THAT YOUNG MAN."

The sun glared down at me. I glared back. It burned my eyes. Aaand I was lightly more awake. I blinked and headed down the concrete path, firmly closing the gate behind me.

Because who knows, maybe if I closed it, I would create a barrier of protection between me and the crazy Kirsteins. I was betting 2:1 in Lynne's favour.

So here's the thing; I decided that morning that I wanted to ask Sasha's parents about the myth, like how real it actually was and how they found each other-seeing as Sasha had the compass tattoo.

Oh, and did that mean that there were other legends? Or were they all linked into one huge and unnecessarily complex legend that somehow ends up with the hero and the girl getting together in the end? (Don't they all?)

I uh, ended up waiting for Jean to wake up after I woke up that morning, staring at him (as you do). It took me a full three minutes to realise that he had his eyes open. I'd even been admiring the colour in them how could I NOT notice?!

I ended up having to play it off as a staring competition. I won that, by the way, because I started biting my lip seductively and caressing my toes over his feet-that he said were cold and made him laugh so hard he started honking and fell out of bed.

It's not something I'm sure I want to re-live. I _broke_ him.

Did you know he goes all out in showing all his buck-tooth glory when he laughs? And that his laugh sounds really, really nasal? I mean it's cute, absolutely adorable, but was he even trying to avoid looking like a horse?

When we got downstairs and helped ourselves to toast since Lynne was in bed, I told Pyjama-Jean my plan. Minus the soul mate thing.

I just told him I wanted to ask about us being psychic. He got really enthusiastic, surprisingly, and told me Sasha's mum was a witch and her dad was a hunter; a demon hunter, that is.

Yeah, I'm not sure what he was told exactly, but I had a feeling that either he was over exaggerating the story or he'd been fed some pretty over the top tales.

He said it would be fine, but then Lynne woke up and told Jean he needed to clean his room and insisted that I go out and "go do something other than rot in this goddamn house like this sonovabitch".

Jean said something that landed him with extra chores and his name scrawled into her bad books. (Let's just hope it not her Death Note)

See, this is why you're supposed to play good. In being the perfect little kid, you get away with pretty much anything-as long as you earn their trust for the most part.

It isn't always satisfying because there are incredibly cheeky comebacks that I can come up with-three years later-but I never say them because they're "not nice", as my parents have trained me to believe.

I had re-programmed myself. In being around Jean, I even found myself swearing more than before (which had been not at all; ever). THE RO-BODT IS MALFUNCTIONING-

I started making my way uptown, avoiding my inevitable destiny of rotting to death had I stayed in Jean's house, and I found myself yawning. I had gotten up earlier than Jean, but not even the chocolate spread on my toast was enough to lift me up.

_Ask yourself, Marco; does this call for an energy drink?_

Okay I got a bit lost uptown but that's okay you know why it's okay? Okay it's okay because I found a newsagents.

Using some of the money in my wallet from my bag (DO YOU KNOW MY DAD LEFT CONDOMS AND LUBE IN THERE? DID YOU KNOW THAT? AND I AM GOING TO KILL HIM BUT DON'T TELL ANYONE?) I managed to get a Redbull and I didn't have change and they also didn't have spare coppers in the shop

so I panicked but it was okay because the guy behind the counter was really pretty and he had his hair in a ponytail and he had stubble on his chin and said he'd pay for it-

I mean he wasn't as cute as Jean but he was tall and blonde and sometimes my gayness comes out okay

-I can look but I can't touch, not that I'd want to because okay there was an intimidating guy beside him at the counter with dark hair and a weird hairstyle that looked like a buzz cut with a bit of awkward lump at the back like it was trying to be a bun and I think he said "Erd, come here, _baby_."

-and I might have had crushes before Jean okay, but he's kind of my one and only right now and forever more-

*_Long deep inhale.*_

Breathe, Bodt. Do something other than hyperventilate. There was a cat opposite me, just sitting beside a black, peeling bench and I wasn't really sure why there would be a cat in the middle of town but hey ho there it was and it was looking at me weirdly and I don't really blame it because I was probably worth looking at weirdly. The can of Redbull had been disposed of, don't worry.

Okay so by this point I was kinda lost and I'm not sure why on earth Jean even let me go out by myself because he knows I do this sort of thing all the time-not just losing where I am but forgetting what I'm doing-and it only clicked that I was supposed to wait for Jean when I heard him speaking directions into my ear even though he wasn't and I'm not really sure what that was about but I was going to see Sasha's parents about that

so I should probably just sit on that bench before I hurt myself.

I couldn't see the direction I'd come from.

The newsagents was nowhere in sight, either that; or it just vanished like some kind of freaky voodoo shop in a movie because they always do that don't they they just disappear and I don't know why they do it that I mean it just seems like a plot device rather than something that was intended to happen and I mean buildings don't just disappear like that they should show some realism in movies you know what I mean-

Speaking of buildings. There was a boy. A chubby boy by the corner of a building wearing a penguin suit, surrounded by creatures -no wait thugs- and he turned his head and by the looks of it he had ifreckles/i.

…

…

SAVE YOUR FRECKLED BROTHER GO GO GO.

"HEY THERE SO I NOTICED YOU HAD FRECKLES AND I THINK YOU SHOULDN'T TRY TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THESE GUYS BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOOK LIKE YOUR KIND OF CROWD AND I DON'T EXACTLY PLAN ON MAKING FRIENDS WITH THEM EITHER. MY BUDDY'S WAITING FOR ME AND YOU KNOW WHAT HE'S WAITING FOR YOU TOO."

And I grabbed that kid and _ran_ out of there! Yeah! Go Bodt go! No, but seriously, there were _chasing_ us!

They had shiny objects.

…

_Knives_.

…

They didn't look like props or toys do you know what I'm saying.

…

"SHIT" -I dragged my freckled friend by his excess fat- "GO GO _GO_!"


	9. Chapter 9

Marco Bodt! Checking in! No, checking _out _with this random guy that I had grabbed but certainly not checking _him _out! Penguin Suit boy with The RoBodt as his rescuer! (coming soon to screens near you)

Our footsteps thudded along the concrete path -his more than mine as he slowed down- and yes, our friends The Muggers, those beautiful hooded bandits, were trailing behind us closely.

I'll tell you something, I have absolutely no idea how people do it in the movies; running away from the bad guy -let alone a collapsing building or an avalanche or I don't know some kind of zombie apocalypse where all the zombies are drooling and out to get you and so don't have any sort of weapon and you're just running for your life except you're only human so really you only have so much life in you- wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Leaves you wheezing and achy and so on.

Run Marco Run!

Remember Forest Gump?

I always wondered how he did that running thing. Teach me; oh great one. I lack the running ability required for such a mission as this.

BUT I HAD ENERGY DRINK AND ADRENELENE. YEEHAH!

And thus my freckled friend was pulled along for the ride with many a yelp. Sounded like hiccups with the way we were running. Or Goofy's laugh.

Using a lamp post with a flower basket on it, I grabbed onto it and swung myself round the corner, seeing as people run slower round corners. I learnt that during track. Pay attention during school guys! You leanr to save people, but for now: EN AVANT.

I hit something solid as I lunged around the corner, swinging Penguin suit dude along for the ride, and blinked a couple of times before I realised I was face to air -looked down- in front of a _certain_ grumbling doctor -oh hey it's the nose hair trimming guy!- that had a dazed and confused expression until it shifted into something a little more scary. Or well it would have been. If I had been the size of a bug.

"You again." he sneered with a curled lip. That attitude ain't gon get you nowhere nuh-uh-

I nodded to him with a snap of my head before darting my head to look round at the sound of footsteps, shifting from foot to foot nervously. I grabbed his shoulders, willing the boy to follow behind me as the man beneath me protested, struggling but NO HIS EFFORTS WERE USELESS HAHAHA.

"Your mockery is not something I've missed but HEY! I've made some new _friends_, I think you should make some new friends too! Do you have friends? Do you know what they are, sir? They're like squirrels and they hide away all the titbits they know about you and sometimes they're like dogs because they like to go for you for attention and annoy you but it's also cute and sometimes they're like cats because they like to snuggle up to you and both is fine both is good, you know?

This is some little freckled guy I picked up -what a way to make friends! Reminds me of primary school, oh the memories!- and we're being chased! MUGGERS. Our new buddies! Friends! Lots of friends! It's a damn PAR-TAY out here!"

Levi squirmed beneath me and suddenly I realised he wasn't in his doctor's outfit. Why did I miss this fact? Did I like doctors in their uniforms? Or did I just like the uniforms? God how do I break the news to my parents that I'm a pervert wait do you tell your parents things like that?

"OI! Let me go, you damn brat!" He was wearing combats and doc martin knock offs and _is that a wife beater _OKAY THIS FEELS LIKE AN ACTION MOVIE NOW, YOU GO LEVI ARMY DUDE YOU GO, MAN-

"LEVI! Big bro! Is that you?! Yoohoo!" A girlish voice squealed from behind me.

The sound of footsteps got louder, Levi escaped my grip and turned around and suddenly I wasn't sure if I should keep running or if I should start thinking 'hey let's go against my own beliefs of not wanting to make friends with muggers'. Yeah who _cares_ if they have knives and a possible objective to kill this freckled dude -not me, hopefully- if they know a certain scary doctor then all's good of _course_ it is-

No. I kept running because _Ohana_ means family and _family means nobody gets left behind_-

Or you know. Maybe they _do_ get left behind because they can't keep up and prefer to hide behind short scary doctors (he really is short isn't he?). Oh god _it's all my fault_; I let go of him in favour of clutching for dear life onto Levi and Levi was conspiring against us the entire time, I'm so sorry my freckled brother I never meant for it to end this way I swear I never intended to betray you. Eat the apples, son, eat _all_ the apples; they keep the doctors away, quick we need a doctor repellent, _just eat the damn apples_-

Levi had his arms crossed, facing the hooded muggers that had gleaming, manic smiles lit up from under their hoods and I decided I'd hide behind him too because if the freckled dude was doing so then why not, yeah, hide behind Dr. Levi even though he practically left half of my body open for aimed knives and bullets and I owed him like ten billion bucks which is probably more than the cost of my ransom and-

oh god this is how it's going to end Jean I'm sorry I never got to tell you I love you -YOUR HAIR JEAN I REALLY FREAKING LOVE YOUR HAIR I NEVER SAID THAT I LOVED YOU WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT-

With the deepest frown I've ever seen on a face and one that made him look at least twenty years older (or just like a pug tbh), Levi marched up to the hooded bandits and ripped down their disguises, revealing a girl with red hair in pigtails and a much taller guy with platinum blonde hair (ugh I've always wanted that colour of hair, probably wouldn't suit me at all but hey I can dream; one day I will be the good version -I don't even know if he's the good or the bad guy he's so weird I love him- Aru Akise from Future Diary wait I don't think he looks anything like me damn my freckles why the freckles and the wide jaw? God I just want to look like the Japanese Artificial Existence Gay Dude _is that so much to ask_?!).

Then Levi eyed the knives in their hands and took them off them without another word and sighed. He mumbled something about how _unsafe _it was to be carrying knives around in public.

…

(_AGRESSIVELY PAUSES_) …

Was there no _lecture _about how they'd attempted to kill the precious freckled boy and me and chased us down like five blocks? Why not? Levi looked like the lecture kind and he had just given them a lecture about carrying knives albeit a short one but even so?

"EXCUSE ME CAN YOU APOLOGIZE TO ME AND MY FRECKLED COMRADE BECAUSE YOU SCARED THE FREAKING LIFE OUTTA US AND CHASED US FOREVER AND I DON'T THINK THAT WAS VERY NICE-"

Levi turned to look at me with a bored expression. "Jeez kid calm down, they weren't going to try anything."

I gestured wildly to their knives that Levi was now holding. "THEY COULD HAVE KILLED HIM AND THEY WERE TRYING TO MUG HIM-"

"Yeah! You scum have no right to try and mug _me. _Do you even know who I _am_?!"

I raised my hand. "I don't."

Levi, Penguin Boy and the other two hoodlums glanced at me, seemingly irritated. The red head bared her teeth and began sizing up the boy, who was no longer protected by Levi. He walked backwards as she grew closer.

"We was tryin' to ask _directions_ t' thee _hospital_ t' see where Levi was and when we was asking you, you started screamin' at us like we were low lifers and telling us to mind our own damn business!" She spat in his face, raising her arms and moving her head from side to side threateningly.

"Well you've _got_ Levi now so can you leave him alone and stop scaring him like that? Look at his _poor _little face he's _trembling _the or baby don't do that to someone of the freckled tribe-"

"Scaring him like _what_?"

"Uh. Invading his personal space and shouting at him, being all in his bubble, excessive noise levels; that sort of thing."

She glimpsed at me from the corner of her eye and sauntered over to me with a dangerous grin. "That's funny you should mention that! Because who was just shouting round like he owned the place, huh?" She poked my chest and she was so close that I could see the pock marked texture of her skin. "Tellin' me to not goes stabbing peoples even though I ain't done nothing!"

"Isabelle. Grammar." Levi chastened her, rolling his eyes and walking away with the white haired boy who was glaring at me quite obviously. He kinda looked a bit like a monkey. He had an under bite. You know where your bottom lip sticks out more than the top one.

'Isabelle' made a face, sticking her neon pink (lollypop affected?) tongue out her mouth a little and frowning at Levi so that he couldn't see her face. She backed down from me, bowing mockingly then looked up at me with a deadpan expression.

"_Ever so sorry goven'a. _Of course I _never _intended to ridicule you and your thickset _acquaintance_ here." She stood upright, flicking a hand at me with bitten down and crudely made up nails as she flounced off. "Ta-ta, cheerio, boy-o! Good _riddance_."

Levi turned back to us from a few paces away, walking backwards alongside the taller man. "I'd apologize for her behaviour, but she's always like that so… No such luck."

Levi smirked at us, ruffling a devilishly grinning Isabelle's hair. I swore his previously elegant posture had suddenly turned into that of a gangster. I frowned furiously -that's passive aggressiveness right there- at his back.

Swiggity swag, he ain't got much _height_ in the bag.

I turned to check on the other boy -feeling a sense of pride because he had freckles (it's really important to me okay)- and reached my hand out for him to shake, which he never took.

Instead he crossed his arms and grimaced. "If you really want to _thank_ me you should be spending _money_ on me. Oh wait! You probably don't even _have _any." he snorted grossly, chuckling at what seemed to be his version of a joke. Thank, thank _him_? But _I_ was the one who saved _him_!

"Flegal Reeves. Don't forget that name, _or else_."

And he… just… walked away, down the street, huffing like _absolutely nothing had happened_.

Ooh he could bet his not sweet ass that I wouldn't be forgetting his name _any _time soon, not on my watch. I didn't have a watch. Eh. I could draw one on.

I tried to find the bench I'd been sitting on before, but ended up finding Jean at the corner I'd been at before where I'd saved Flegal. Flegal _Reeves. Fat Penguin Boy. _My mouth was twitching at the bruising new memory.

I saw him before he saw me, so I decided to sneak up behind him and head butt his shoulder with my head. It would've worked but he was a few inches shorter than me. I felt him tense up under my touch. He hissed worriedly.

"Ooh you're pissed, what's up man?"

"Ugh," I pushed into him, guiding him to move forwards with my head which he did, with a stumble. "Just, just _ugh_."

He chuckled and reached over his shoulder to pat me on that head. "I know the feeling well. Are you still up for Sasha's?"

I made a noise that meant I didn't really care either way, revelling in his warmth and smell and trying not to wrap my arms around his waist and snuggle into him but hey how bad would that really be?

"I tried to save this guy from some muggers and I ran into Dr. Levi and all the muggers were dicks and the guy I saved was a _dick, _and I'm not implying he was a Richard - in the how do you get Dick from Richard kind of way- I mean he was just so _horrible_ and I am _so sad _right now and the _world_ hates me and I have done _nothing wrong _and just uuugh."

Jean started humming along the way ( was he becoming a daytime person? Had I transformed him?!) in a way that had my heart melting metaphorically and my insides feel warm (figuratively?), after I moved from my position on his shoulder and trudged alongside him; all traces of my adrenaline high gone without a trace. Hmm. They do say that coming down from a high is pretty awful. _What drugs were in that Redbull? _Maybe dope. Because. I felt like one.

Eventually though, Jean had me caught up in his apparent good mood when he started singing out loud and even had me singing along. "_If you let me treasure you, oh, oh, OH!"_

"Bruno Mars… hey, Jean, _I'd catch a grenaaade for ya." _That made him hit my arm because apparently he hates that song. I don't really blame him. It was just so wail-y.

In between my bobbing head and swinging shoulders that stayed in time to the song, I nudged into him every so often and smiled, biting my lip as I showed off how much of a dork I could be with my ridiculous dance moves, and Jean returned the movement with a swift spin or jazz hands. The he saw which house we were outside of, and jumped over the front gate with energy I wasn't aware that he was capable of and completely changed his tune, literally.

"MY FRIEND THE WITCH DOCTOR: SHE TOLD ME WHAT TO DO."

Then a female voice I didn't recognise sounded from inside the house.

"MY FRIEEEEND THE WITCHDOCTOR, SHE TOLD ME WHAT TO SAAAAY."

And in that moment, I began to regret asking to see Sasha's parents; the witch and the demon hunter. (Is that the deleted episode of the Buffy series or...)


	10. Chapter 10

I don't know why, but I have the odd inclination to introduce myself. (MARCO!) But I've already done that several times, so how about I skip the ego boosting business and head straight into the introduction of the cast in the long lost episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that never was.

It's one of those crappy sequels that doesn't have the original cast and doesn't have anything to do with the original story. Kind of like Beethoven 3. My Girl 2. I could go on... But I'm not going to. Because I can't actually think of anymore. There is more though, I can assure you. There's enough rubbish T.V for all.

So. First of all there's the house of Braus. (No, not "house of mouse" like that thing on Disney Channel) It was quite homely looking; various shades of brown with a sheltered front porch, a garage attached to the side with the family car outside of it (i.e. the soccer-mom kind minivan).

There was every flower you could possibly imagine in a small garden which was thankfully separated from the path that I had lost a giddy Jean on when he jumped over the gate, into the land of the unknown (oh the sadness. This is my sob story; the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life, I swear).

I went up the path, following Jean into the house. With a discreet nod, I respectfully acknowledged a small, red capped gnome that lived beside a kitsch, metal bench on the porch, and walked through the hastily opened door. If the garden was anything to go by, I should have expected the mess inside the house.

Well, it wasn't _messy_, exactly, but it was cluttered. There were random pieces of furniture running amok, rubbish was piling up in plastic bins, clothes were overwhelming the straining laundry basket beside a fading fabric couch and there were too many books on the bookshelf that seemed to have various... stuff on it (was that a dinner plate? And a slinky?). Okay, so it _was_ pretty messy. But as long as there wasn't dog poop or cockroaches, then it was all good.

There was a call of my name from what must've been the kitchen, so I wandered in the direction of Jean's voice. He has a nice voice. He does. The kitchen was pretty similar to the living room, but thankfully the dishes were clean, though they filled the dish dryer to the point where I feared for the dishes futures. On the kitchen table, there was a whole heap of paper which a woman who just _had_ to be Sasha's mother was tipping onto the oak coloured wood.

Mrs Braus; a heavily breasted woman with a patterned shawl draping over her shoulders and a sleek, auburn pixie cut. A woman with an apparent theme song, one that Jean must've sang every time he came over. I want one. I don't even care if it's something from the Rocky Horror Show. Jean was chatting to her, sitting in a chair opposite her with his legs crossed over. Or rather, she was babbling at him and he was nodding politely, until she turned round and saw me.

"Hey there! You must be Marco." She regarded me with a smile and told me to sit, so I took a seat beside Jean. Maybe it's mean to say, but I was fully expecting for her to drop the "nice little lady" façade and turn into your typical ugly witch with a pointy nose. (She never did, god was I disappointed. What a wild ride that would've been!)

As expected of someone from the countryside, it took her a while to move past the small talk where I told her about my adventure with the thugs and a certain nose-hair-trimming doctor/rich thug and the evil penguin suit boy that will _never_ have my help again. _Ever_.

Maybe it was worth telling them though, because Jean got to hear about what he missed out on and... Well. He certainly had a very dopey smile for someone who was listening to a new friend's story. (That's right, I'm promoting myself at this point from stranger to friend. I think I deserved something for all then things I'd put up with from this boy. Boners, heart wrenching stories, sass and so on.)

Not that I didn't appreciate his lovely look. What I was feeling was more along the lines of "if you can feel what I'm feeling then why can't you guess which of those feelings are directed at you" or maybe he _did_ bloody know and was using it against me!

He just had to be torturing me intentionally with cute, crooked smiles and hands that threaded through the blonde part of his hair as though he were teasing me because I couldn't touch it with my own fingers. As though he was fully aware of the flutter in my stomach, the relaxing feeling settling into my shoulders and AGH. The need to kiss him! Hug him! Nuzzle into his hair! Not fair. At all.

I subtly managed to tell Mrs Braus that Jean didn't know about the soul mate connection and that he thought of it as a psychic connection -although it could've just as well have been something simply psychic- and she started scrambling through her notes, which were apparently various observations of paired soul mates in Trost. To know that I am not unique... Let my cry on your shoulder, dear friend. Comfort me.

I had my own questions about the whole thing (stuff I didn't want Jean to know... At least, not yet, anyway) so I asked for some spare paper to write on and was given a well chewed on pen. There was a long pause where I simply stared at the mutilated pen, causing Mrs. Braus to look at me funny, but I just got down to listing my questions as they came to mind.

She took a while in replying, and Jean seemed pretty content in playing with a cat that trudged under the table, so I crawled under the table with him, sitting my butt onto the grey tiles. (THAT BETTER NOT BE AN EARWIG I JUST SAW)

He looked down in his lap at the Siamese cat, so I inched closer and petted its head. Internally wishing he would give me the same adoring look he gave to that cat... He must've not seen me though, because he jumped when our hands brushed over the kitty's head and he hit his own noggin on the table above us and cursed loudly.

Mrs Braus didn't seem to mind his profanities. "Marco! I've got your answers here for you!" Chuckling, I left Jean curled up on the floor, clutching onto his head for dear life and hiding his face with his arms. ("That's right... Leave me on the floor to crumple up and die, Marco. I guess I over-estimated your compassion. I'm not in any pain, no, not at all... Fuckin' heartless bastard.")

But although I was laughing, my fingertips were searing where Jean has touched them. I held my hand to my chest as the heart inside it decided to do somersaults and my breath came out in short, broken pants.

The woman gave me this _look_, (such sass) and I swear she knew (why do all the mothers in Trost torment me about my feelings? Ones that I haven't even admitted out loud to anyone yet? Damn I must be really obvious, um), and right there and then I really hated her all knowing grin as she handed me the sheet. I tried to scowl at her. I've been told I go cross-eyed when I'm mad though, so I guess my attempt at intimidation didn't really work on her.

Her writing was fairly neat next to mine:

Why can Jean feel what I feel? Why doesn't it work for me?

_I'm pretty sure it makes Jean think about what he's actually feeling, since he has to separate his feelings from yours, and it forces him to see the truth of what you feel. If he wants to understand it, he has to ask you, and that brings him out his shell,-he's a shy boy, mind you! It'll show that he cares. For you... Well, I'd say it makes you more self aware when your emotions cause him to act differently. You have to love yourself so that Jean can too!_ ;) (I TOLD YOU SHE KNEW)

Does the feelings thing work the same for Sasha and Connie?

_Everyone's different, so these guys share thoughts and habits. This old witch had more than one soul mate and I decided to settle down with the one that I felt romantically attracted to. _

If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that me and Jean wouldn't be completely platonic like Sasha and Connie (If my boner for him was anything to go by). But chances were that those feelings would be one-sided...

Why do we hear the other giving us directions?

_It gives you the option to be together, it makes you realize that you're choosing to be with him and that you're both making an effort to stay together It might be a metaphor for your missing part calling out to you? Some Greek shit or whatever. Plato whatshisface. Jean's voice in your mind is a reminder that the connection can't be lost even if you choose to stay away. It's kind of like a vocal reassurance that you can see each other if you need to. _

Well. Back when I was thirteen and trying to avoid him, that had definitely proved to be true.

Why do Sasha and Connie have tattoos?

_Everyone has a different sense of direction. Everyone is unique when it comes to their connection-should they have one, but it might be a family thing? My research hasn't gone that far yet. _

Hmm, both Jean's mum and my parents seemed to have the "GPS system in our mind" thing going on for us. I wonder what that meant?

How do I improve my orientation/spatial skills? I get lost easily and it caused trouble for the both of us...

_Go do some orienteering, kid. Write "right" and "left" on your hands if you have to. _

How do we know for sure that we're soul mates? Like is there a legend or something?

_Every legend is little different- this one especially since you basically have instructions leading you to your soul mate rather than having to search like the rest of the world. (What a special duckling are you, huh?!) Your soul mate is like a mirror. You do things you thought you wouldn't normally do while trying to find him and while with him. He makes you see who you really are, and helps you to grow, and vice versa. _

I guess that that was true... Normally, I wouldn't have left Jinae simply because I had a date with destiny (platonic date, pah, hospital date, UGH) and usually I wouldn't have bothered to try looking for anyone who I didn't know the whereabouts of, simply because I had no idea where I was going. I was going to have to take her up on her idea of writing on my hands... That might actually work...

Why did Connie start having seizures after Sasha left?

_Sasha likes to eat food, so she was the one that would remind him to eat something sweet and take his medication. After she left, he lost his appetite, so he was lowering his blood sugars dangerously. Poor boy, if only I'd known_ :(

Why are the GPS thing and the compass tattoos both to do with direction?

_I'm pretty sure it's a metaphor for a life journey or going in the same life direction or whatever. _

I heard us being soul mates might be a past life thing?

_Nahhhh, not unless you felt an odd nostalgia around them? Or were triggered into remembering a past life? _

Pursing my lips as I read the last question, I shook my head slowly and folded the paper up into a neat square, glancing over at a slowly rising Jean who was peeping over the edge of the table like an exited puppy.

Sadly, I never got to meet the infamous Demon Hunter that was Sasha Braus' father and potato girl Sasha didn't seem to be around. Mrs Braus AKA "call-me-Avril" told us that they were at Connie's house for a barbecue and surprisingly enough, Jean suggested that we go over to his. I think it was the concept of free food that did it for him.

"Oh my goddess, please don't leave me with this house full of chores to be done! I'll pay you in gossip and laughter if you help me out!" She reached her arms out the door, as though desperately trying to lasso us back indoors. "Dun't leave meeeee!"

I decided that I quite liked the eccentric Mrs Avril Braus. Well. When she wasn't throwing around those knowing smiles. YOU KNOW NOTHING GOOD SIR.

* * *

_If I don't start making some fluffy stuff happen next chapter, I give you my full permission to stab me with a mattress._


	11. Chapter 11

_I'll be honest with you now, I can't take the credit for most of these jokes... Have fun reading! Love you 3 _

* * *

You want to know what sequel I want to see? Or well, it's more of a prequel, actually. Toy Story is one of them, but more to the point, I want see the prequel to Grease. That Gay-as-Broadway musical which literally comes with the singing and dancing. And let's not forget the drive-in movie theatres and Elvis Presley copycats. Mm-mm. What I would give to meet Danny and to run my fingers through his delicious quiff... Sigh...

Anyway, in the prequel I hope they show what he and Sandy did in the summer, when Danny was in Australia. Because then I would know if this summer would be one of those possible "summer romances" by comparing the two. Sandy mentioned that Danny thought she was drowning and saved her, but that's about all I can think of that started the romance between them.

Should I save Jean? Accidentally push him into a river and rescue the guy? Although technically that would be the "falling in love because you're falling to your death" kind of false-love. Some theory including drawbridges or whatever. Although at this point, I was ready to do almost anything just to get Jean's attention in that way.

Scheme one: Woo him with my dastardly amazing looks.

Jean and I had left the house of Braus and were on our way to Connie's place, walking over a stone bridge that was sheltered from the hot summer sun by the trees overhead. I paused in my step, leaning over the railing as I looked down at the translucent water, watching the flow as it ran beneath me and looking at the swaying tree that was bent over the water with it's finger-like branches skimming over the surface.

"Hey, Marco, what are you doing?

I turned to a confused Jean, giving him my best smile, hopefully dazzling him with my pearly whites, glittering eyes, beautiful black hair shining in the sun and my freckles. (Freckles can attract people all on their own) "Let's go skinny dipping."

Jean snorted oh-so-attractively, moving to rest his clothed forearms along the railing. Raising an eyebrow in disbelief, he shook his head slowly and watched the water ripple when he kicked some stones off the edge. No, but seriously; how did he get his eyebrows so_ perfect_? And his skin so _smooth_? Had he never been a victim of acne? Puberty has been too nice to you, Jean!

"You're out of your mind." he grumbled.

I sighed. My plan hadn't worked. Damn. Better luck next time, Bodt! Hang in there!

Scheme two: Woo him with my awesome wittiness. (God, "woo" sounds like such an old fashioned word. They say love is timeless, though...)

"Out of my mind, hmm... I can reassure you I'll be back in five minutes."

That made him laugh and smile, and I noticed he had a small dimple in his left cheek. It got my hopes up, but he turned away and started walking again. Ugghh. I was determined to get his attention and flirt with him somehow, especially after that cute incident with the cat. Was Jean a cat person? He sure as hell could pet _me_ any day...

Like, I didn't want to push Jean too far, seeing as he was suddenly a daytime creature and apparently no longer nocturnal (maybe Avril the Witch put a spell on him when I wasn't watching? Or maybe it was the cat!) but you know, I wanted to push at least a _little_. I'm pretty sure that if I was only interested in him because of the soul mate connection, then I would've told him about it in the first place.

I wasn't into him because of the connection; I hadn't told him that we were supposedly soul mates because I knew he wasn't ready, i.e. I could tell and had been told that he wouldn't believe me at all. I wanted him to trust me enough to believe any crazy thing I told him, not that I would abuse that trust and say any old thing. I was very willing to do the hard work of trying to get him to like me back, sadly knowing full well he had this weird bitterness towards relationships.

I liked him because... Well. Because he was Jean.

With a skip in my step, I walked quickly over to him before he could ditch me. "So what's this barbecue going to be like, do you know?"

He shrugged nonchalantly with pursed lips. "Connie's a pretty popular guy, but it depends if his parents will let him have people over. We should be fine for getting in, though." he mused.

"So it could be pretty wild, huh?" I grinned excitedly.

"It could be downright fucking _crazy_." he grinned wickedly at me so that his honey coloured eyes creased at the sides. I smiled softly at the sight. "When I say Connie's popular, I mean he knows _all kinds_ of people. He literally picks people off the streets and befriends them. He's just that kind of guy."

We had gone into a park with a long, winding path. Lots of trees bearing fruits lined the area, and I wondered if I could convince Jean to pick the fruit with me later on (in the dark of the night: safe from public eyes. Ninja style! I'd wear my bandit mask; I brought it just in case. ...You think I'm joking...). The wide expanse of grass was dry and yellow because of the heat, though there were flower boxes carefully sheltered in the shadow of the trees. Trees of which I cannot name the species of because I am not a tree naming person.

Imagine Jean eating an orange, one that's nice and big and round... With the juices escaping his mouth, him closing his eyes as he moans in pleasure at the acidic taste-

"Marco, can you dance?" I snapped out of my, ahem, _daydream_ as he glanced at me mischievously.

"W-why, is there going to be music?"

"Well obviously," he rolled his eyes, stuffing his hands into his grey hoodie pocket. How wasn't he boiling in that outfit? "A barbecue is basically a summer party, so yeah."

I scratched my chin thoughtfully, gazing out into the distance as though I were in a philosophical movie. "Currently, I'm working on the hokey cokey. I haven't quite got all the dance moves yet, but I've got the ins and the outs of it."

Jean stopped walking, staring at me with lowered lids. "_Dude_."

Turning around and walking backwards, I smiled at him innocently, saluting him with a cheerful "Marco Bodt at your service, sir!"

Yes, Jean. Let me... _service_ you.

(Oh my god, I am so glad this poor guy couldn't hear my thoughts)

Connie appeared to live in a cottage with a large back garden, which I thought was very kitsch as his house reminded me of the one from Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". (I had an argument with one of them earlier... He wasn't happy.)

There was a mass of flowers lined up by the path, though they were thankfully more well kept than the ones at Sasha's had been (I care about flowers' health and well-being, okay?). We went round the back like Jean instructed, going to the left side of the forked path.

In the middle of the fenced garden there was a children's swimming pool. Kids... Ah, yeah; Jean liked Connie's little sisters, didn't he? I'd get to meet them, yay! Closer to the back door, there was a woman at the barbecue, flipping some burgers while talking to a dark haired man.

"WATCH OUT- OH WAIT! HEY, IT'S JEAN!" A man's voice hollered.

Jean was ambushed by two blonde haired little girls who screeched his name in hysterical delight, and a fully grown man cradling a toddler followed shortly after, piling onto him as he descended to the ground with a shout.

"No, no don't you dare! SUNNY, GRACE, NO! ST-STOP -_ahahaHAHA_\- STOP TICKLING ME! Get off me pleee-_hee_-ea-_hee_-se!" Jean squirmed in a fit of laughter on the grass. "Springer! Control your -_ahaha!_\- children! Get y-your spawn off of me!"

Meanwhile, I had trouble suppressing my own laughter at the sight of a helpless Jean, not wanting to help him because I'd never heard him laugh so hard before or smile that much and it made my insides feel really warm. I received a jab at my sides that had me squealing with a jolt and spinning around to find myself face to face with Connie, who was grinning like the devil.

"Marco the magician! How be you? Are you joining us for the party today?" He held out his hand for me to shake. He had a firm grip, I liked him.

I beamed at him. "Yup! And I'm good." I glanced around at the group in the garden, who were namely adults. "Would you mind introducing me to people? Is it only grown ups and kids here?"

"Nah, man. Sasha's inside, uh, she has some friends over and they're talking in girl code, but!" He held out his hands dramatically and led me towards a wooden bench. "Mum said I can have some of my friends over too, so now we're just waiting for them to show up, since they have to drive here. Have you heard of Shiganshina? That's where they're from. I'll show you around 'til they get here!"

Eventually I found out that the two grown ups by the barbecue were Connie's parents; Alistair-who was the spitting image of Connie but older and with short black hair, he told me to call him Ali (or Stair, he didn't mind, so he said) and Janet-who had short, blonde hair -like the two little girls currently trying to pull off Jean's hoodie as he scolded them half-heartedly- and wide blue eyes that peered into my soul as Connie introduced me to her.

"So you're the boy Connie told me about? The one that's Jean's soul mate?" I nodded at her as the heat rose to my cheeks, and she told me about how Sasha's mum helped her and Ali find each other.

See? _See_?! I wasn't crazy to believe in the whole soul mate thing. Either that or it's just that I wasn't the only one who was crazy. So far, that's three couples paired by the soul mate connection; as well as Jean's mum who believed in the connection enough to try and push me and Jean together.

She made us share a bed for a reason, you know. She might not have told me directly that she was doing just that, but I saw the evil in her eyes when she told us how the sleeping arrangements would go.

The two girls were Connie's twin sisters Sunny and Grace, and the man holding his baby sister Hope was Sasha's dad Robert; the demon hunter. Sasha and her friends greeted me once Connie dragged them out the living room and the first thing Sasha said to me, while pointing at Robert, was:

"My dad has the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban from the zoo."

... I couldn't tell whether she was joking or not. Did demon hunters use animal hearts in their hunts? To exorcise demons? I had yet to know. When I asked Jean about the whole thing, he told me to ask the man himself. I'll admit I was a bit hesitant, but seeing as he was carrying the baby, I reckoned he wouldn't try and hurt me... Yet.

He nodded to me seriously, eyeing me with brown eyes from under a fishing hat. "It is true that I am an agent of Satan, however my duties are largely ceremonial." He waggled his eyebrows at me and left me in favour of snatching up a bundle of the newly prepared burgers while Sasha tried to fight him off.

I met with Jean a while later when I grabbed a burger and drink for myself, sitting down on the grass with him while the two girls were cooed over by Sasha's friends. "I learned a lot of vital information today."

He immediately scooted away from me, clutching his burger in his napkin with wide eyes and his mouth full.

"Oh don't worry, I won't use it against you." I glanced up at the blue sky, then back at him. "Yet."

He chuckled. "I guess I won't be able to sleep tonight."

Scheme three: Imply absolutely nothing and almost everything.

Catching his honey eyes with my brown ones, I gazed at him with lowered eyelids, subtly brushing his knuckles with a finger. "That's 'cause I'll be the one keeping you up, Jean." I purred, hoping he didn't hear my heart rate increase.

THERE WE GO. THERE. WE GO. I present to you, PROGRESS. My statement got him to blush and turn away, avoiding my eyes and staring at his hand as he nibbled at his burger. He let out a long sigh and looked up at the sky, where the sun still wasn't setting despite it being almost six in the evening.

"Are you high?" he mumbled to his bun, still a little pink in his cheeks.

I pretended to consider this for a moment (Tension! Anticipation! Oh, the thoughts that could be in my head! The things he didn't know! -_Thank god_)

"No. I don't think I can get high, actually. I tried sniffing coke once, but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose." I reached for my red solo cup, only to find it had gone missing. Huh. I must not have gotten a cup after all.

Just then, Sasha and the group of girls came over to talk to us and I quickly forgot each of their names, calling each one by the wrong name so many times that they just let me call them whatever I wanted. (I may have taken that too far and gotten lightly slapped on the arm... Jean was noticeably quick to defend me. Good boy; I have trained you well.)

But when Connie's friends came round, there was one boy's name that I couldn't possibly forget if I wanted to (believe me, I wanted to)

"EREN JAEGER IS IN THE HOUSE BITCHES!"

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Next time: Marco makes a mistake he can't fix...


	12. Chapter 12

_Okaaay so, sorry for the long wait! Aussi, I shouldn't have set you up for "marco's mistake" because, as it turns out, I've led you on. Sorry! (This is what I get when I try to plan chapters in advance, ugh) Thank you for your reviews! I look forward to reading more! Remember: it is your duty as the reader to tell me if the quality is lacking. Or if there's something you like. Or both. Both is good. And hey, if anyone's got tips on how to write people with a crush, I'd really appreciate that!_

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Professional Party Guest Repellent: see Eren Jaeger.

"Alright, laaaadies and gents, lemme just take you upstairs on our tour of the Springer habitat. To your right, folks, you'll see the nest of a rare species of mammal called Connie. If you look closely, you'll find his collection of porn magazines-"

"Eren!" Connie chased the green eyed boy and his associates up the stairs. "I'm fucking ace, remember? Oi! Eren. EREN! Stop giving people tours of my house!" That poor boy. Then again, what on earth drove him to have a friend like Eren Jaeger?

I waited with Jean at the bottom of the stairs. "This is why I have such a shit sense of humour, Marco. I've been known to laugh at "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes and I'm guessing this is on par with how not-funny it's supposed to be. But it is! Kind of. Mostly, anyway. When are drunken people not funny?" At least... At least he knows... I'm sorry Jean, but it's true. Nah I'm just kidding! He could be funny… when he didn't try to be funny, that is.

Where had a heard him say that joke before? "Oh! The directions you gave me... One time when I was thirteen, you told me one of the chicken crossing the road jokes to lead me to you."

He raised an eyebrow at me, apparently not surprised. "Did I say something like "the chicken crossed the road and walked a thousand miles in order to find me"?"

"...More complicated than that, but yeah. That's very close, actually." My eyes widened when I noticed Eren was falling down the stairs in his drunken stupor. "Hey, be careful!"

The itsy-bitsy blonde boy latching onto Eren's arm was apparently his friend Armin. Awww, I could dunk him in my coffee! Not that I drink coffee. But God, imagine if I did. I might have to, one day when I go to work. I'd ride my merry way down office aisles on a trusty swivel chair with a jousting ruler in tow and be bouncing at my computer desk constantly...

"Eren's a lil' drunk, s'rry..." Armin slurred and hiccuped when he toddled down the stairs, peering at me intensely with glassy blue eyes. He clamped a hand onto my bicep and furrowed his bushy blonde brows so he looked like an owl with a waistcoat. Very, uh, preppy, I must say.

Jean mumbled under his breath. "Clearly, he's not the only one who's chugged down a few."

"But like, Mikaser isn' and she drove 'cause... 'Cause y'know how you get desa- I mean, designated drivers and all that? Yeah she's one of them. Pretty sure we'll be gone by like, eleeeven or somethin'-"

Swiftly taking away his vice-like grip on me, a dark haired girl, presumably Mikaser or whatever her name was, nodded apologetically. "He isn't normally like this. He's always more well-behaved. I _swear on my life_." Her black irises locked on mine. I took a precautionary step back because heeello; too close, too intimidating, and you know what, it wasn't like she was offering me any other option than to say:

"That's okay! I'm sure since he can remember words like "designated driver" even when he's drunk, he's bound to be smart, right?" I turned to see Jean with his phone out, recording as Eren groaned beneath Connie's arm, slowly slinking his way down with the gracefulness of a seal on sand. "Be sure to send me that video, Jean-Bo."

"You've saved yourself under the contact "Ayy Pure Polo", am I right?" Jean chuckled, pressing his lips together before speaking. "Don't worry, I'll send it to ya." he winked at me and smirked. Winking suits him! Especially when those bats of eyelashes are aimed at me! They shoot the butterflies right into my stomach! A-and they apparently turn my cheeks bright red...

"Does that mean…"I shook my head as Jean glanced at me curiously. No, Bodt, people don't just instantly_ like_ you because you implied you'd have sex with them, especially when they're strangers, or even friends. Winking is flirtatiously friendly! I attempted to wink back, but my mouth opens when I wink and… _Okay, okay, abort mission, just stop blushing Bodt! REMEMBER HE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE FEELING._

Eventually we made it back outside to the barbecue, leaving Connie to chase Eren around the garden with his mother's liquor stash jostling in his arms "Come baaack." Armin wheezed behind them. Sasha didn't make Connie's job any easier and was deterring everyone from the food table by lingering too closely, watching them prepare to bite with a grimace.

"Ooh yeah that's a bad choice. You don't wanna know what goes in there." A lot of people flung the food onto the table with a squeal and left; giving Sasha the perfect opportunity to take the goods manipulated into her hand. Damn, I just had to learn that girl's tactics... I stand corrected: meet Sasha, Professional Among the Most Elite of Party Guest Repellents.

Despite there being other people for us to talk to, Jean didn't seem all that interested in making more new friends.

"We're like, the only people our age here. Sasha's friends already left after having to put up with Eren tripping them up when they tried to dance, had to deal with him chucking bits of bread at people's heads and him shouting "THIS IS MY JAM" at every song. If that didn't send them away, Sasha did, with that weird deflection thing she's got going on at the food table." He shrugged. "All that's left is adults and Connie's sisters. I mean, if you're into man-children like Sasha's dad, be my guest. I could just leave you with the drunken duo back there."

"So what should we do then?" I asked him with a pout. "I need to be entertained, peasant."

He thought for a moment, his face lighting up like a kid at a candy store when he had an idea. "Let's play questions!" Meet Jean; the human light bulb. "Not twenty questions, mind you. That's too limiting."

"Okay, I have a question for you Jean."

As he sat by me in the dry grass, sun slowly setting opposite him (blinding him, really), he covered his eyes with his arm and lay down. "That's what I like to hear. Shoot: interrogate me. Do your worst." The sunlight illuminated his hair, making it seem luminescent under the grey of his hoodie. It was tempting to cop a feel... of the hoodie. Damn, it looked soft. And probably smelled of Jean!

"Hmm..." A normal question, come on Marco. "What's the worst grade you ever got?" …I suck at flirting. Come on Gemini traits! Bring back my game!

"Please don't think less of me once I tell you, oh intelligent son of Doctor Bodt. I think it was in that class you do number stuff in." he paused. "I got an A. Terrible, absolutely dreadful, I know." he pretended to sob.

"...Wait, seriously?" Jean lifted his arm away. Honey eyes narrowed at me childishly, letting me relish in the colour and patterns before he averted his gaze.

"Yeah, Scary Movie taught me there's always an A in Fail." he rolled his eyes and punched me on the arm. I hope he didn't notice me shiver... "Come on man! Hit me harder! I can take your intense questioning! Fucking give me all you've got!"

Glancing around me, and trying to ignore seeeeveral innuendos as my face heated up, I noticed something was missing. "Where's my coke?!" My pitch rose in annoyance. "I swear I went and got one!"

Suddenly Jean bounced up and ran up to Eren grabbing him by the shoulders and stumbling under his weight as Eren jostled him. "Alert! Alert! Marco's lost his drink! Go help him find it, his LIFE DEPENDS ON IT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"

Eren squeezed his eyes shut, baring his teeth as he shouted to the sky. "GOD DAMMIT! YES I DO!" _Oh my god_.

Jean screamed at him while I ducked my head in embarrassment, attempting to call out to him and telling him to shut up. "I DIDN'T HEAR YOU, I SAID, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS MISSION IS A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION?" A giggle slipped from him, clearly telling me he was just taking the piss out the fact Eren was drunk, blindly following him on his way towards me.

"YES, YES, YES, FUCKING YES! I HEARD YOU, YOU EQUINE FUCKER. To the stallion's jockey! Armin, my boy," I lifted my head in time to see Eren try to hop into Armin's unprepared arms. "That's not the right way, my dear steed. We're headed forward, not down! Gee-up, onward."

"You heard the man, blondie! Onwards and upwards- forwards... march!"

"Wh-which way is forward? The ground's moving too much, I can't do it. Eren..!" And thus came the end of Armin and Eren Jaeger as they slowly disintegrated, becoming a pile of bodies and sloth-like arms, trying to reach for salvation and groaning loudly enough to wake the dead. Or maybe they were implying that they were already dead. Damn it, I've had enough of implications today. They haven't worked for me!

Jean's mouth curved downwards, failing to look serious as he opened his mouth in breathy laughter and stumbled over to me. The ground took a half-hearted pounding from him. "I love that guy. Oh my _god,_ he's so fucking stupid it's perfect. Perfect for the vine!" (No, Jean. Marco is the one that's perfect. Repeat it after me) His body collapsed, sending his face bright red from laughter onto my lap, his shoulders shaking. When he calmed down a little he sighed almost sadly. "That should keep them at bay for a little while."

He was touching meeee. See that hole over there? Let me get sucked into it and sink to the earth's core. I reckon it's cooler down there than my face was!

"Are you disappointed your play time friend is taking his nap?"

"Very much so! The disappointment: it _burrrrns._"

I patted his head and smiled, a spike of warmth growing within my chest as he nuzzled my hand with his head. "There there, let it all out now. I was wondering where Happy Jean had gone off to."I crooned. Soft, two-toned hair... Felt like feathers, like, wow... It was like petting a baby bird.

"I was happy earlier." he retorted haughtily, but he was still smiling as well. "Oh, by the way, Sunny keeps sneaking up behind you, and Grace seems to have a suspicious number of cups stacked up..."

My eyes narrowed at him. "You couldn't have told me this before."

"No. It was physically impossible." he snorted then stuck his tongue out. My lip curled up to reveal my canines.

"I _will_ actually render you physically unable to tell anybody anything." With my mouth. Sucking on that pretty little tongue of yours, Jean.

Jean uncovered his eyes, widening honey orbs to mock me as they locked onto mine. Sparks rose in my chest. "I'd love to see you try-"

"HEY," Armin had an elbow propped up and his cheek lazily rested in his palm. Eren lay on top of him with a bottle as he spoke. "You two should kiss."

Bad little blonde. _I don't appreciate your ASDF movie quotations. _

"Eren, Eren," he shook the brunette above him urgently. "They _need_ to _happen._ We're gonna do the whole "na-na-na-na don't be scared: you gotta, kiss the boy" just like in Mermaid Ariel. That's our mission now, 'kay?" Eren cheered and began singing Under the Sea.

"I feel offended by that accent on behalf of Sebastian the Crab." Jean scoffed at them, standing up and helping me to my feet.

And with that, we promptly left them on the grass to impersonate characters from The Little Mermaid to their drunk heart's content.

* * *

"...You were being serious about the dancing?"

"Yes, yes," Jean dragged me by my bare wrist to the living room where the music was playing. I was half skipping and bumping my hips against his as he tried to get ahead of me. "This is the ultimate tune."

"This song... from Dirty Dancing?" "Time of my life" played through the T.V speakers, a DVD symbol floating across the screen. I can't believe The Black Eyed Peas did a cover of this. They sound too different!

He grinned at me and rolled up his hoodie sleeves after releasing me from his searing grip. "You betcha." I absent-mindedly reached for his forearms, so pale and supple looking; only realizing my mistake when he moved away.

I sighed irritably, lifting a hand to rub at my clammy neck. "That movie was so misogynistic-"

"Obviously, it was made in, like, the _eighties_ or something-"

"Not to mention that girl was such a prude! With, with the weird _pout_ and bitch face whenever she didn't get anything she didn't want."

"'Cause she was a daddy's girl with all the money of a doctor. That sound familiar?"

My jaw dropped in mock offense. "..._Bitch_!"

His shoulders swayed in time with the music as the drumbeat started, and he pursed his lips in a way that was supposed to be goofy, but well, I'm sure you can guess by now that I was pretty much powered by hormones and physical attraction by this point. Sigh. When would the emotional quality to our beautiful relationship appear?

Whispering, I felt myself bobbing to the music too. "I'm a daddy's girl too."

His laugh was a sharp, nasal burst. "A girl? You? That would make the conversation we had about you keeping your dick away from me very awkward!"

"It was either that, or calling myself daddy's son, which sounds way more literal than a metaphor for favouritism."

My head shook solemnly and I pressed my lips together, trying to be serious. At the same time I wondered why he was being so talkative... It seemed to be because Eren had shown up? Although I had a feeling when he "kept them at bay" it's because Eren and Armin were annoying him, yet I imagined him to be more explosive when he got irritated.

Huh. Maybe it depended on how he was feeling? Or who he was around? Maybe i really had transformed him into a daytime creature. But for now, watching him click his fingers and nodding his head in a lame attempt at dancing, meant that he was opening up a bit more.

"Because I had, the time of my lii-ah-ife! And I neeeever felt this way before!" Jean quietly began to impersonate the singer. And _damn_ did he do a fine job of it. (Though I think he hurt his throat from lowering his pitch so drastically) "Yeah, I swear," his pitch raised to its usual level and spun round.

I grabbed his hands that were making jerky "dance" movements when he faced me again and pulled him into a waltz grip, both of us almost falling over.

"W-wait you can actually dance?!" he squawked.

"Nope! Because guess what? People don't automatically know how to dance! HOWEVER. Looks like those New Year 's Eve dances at Jinae Town Hall came in useful!"

Glancing at our joined hands, my other on his waist with his on my shoulder I sang back to him, staring into his eyes. "And I owe it all to yoooooooooou!" This isn't the right dance to the song but whatever. You only live once and I'm sure as hell not missing any opportunities.

I counted in threes as we spun round and he laughed, creating small swirls in the living room with our feet. His back! On my hands! I'd never wash them again! God, I never wanted to let him go, this was like, the closest to a hug we'd ever gotten –not counting him pinning me to the bed with his leg.

Jean's blonde and brown hair grew dishevelled as he flicked his head, heartfelt lyrics vibrating and sending tingles up my arm. His arm was firm with muscle under my fingers, and yes, you bet I pinched the fabric in my fingers. Soft soft soft!

Our pace slowed as our spins grew smaller, drawing us closer together heatedly. Hopefully he couldn't hear how hard my heart was pounding beneath the fabric that separated us. I looked down at his lips and back to his eyes as they flicked between mine, smile dropping subtly but his face still brimming with happiness.

He whispered as a corner of his lips tugged upwards, caramel orbs remorseless as they caught me in their deep pools. "Hey." Wow, was that his breath I felt on my skin?

My breath caught in my throat, rendering me physically speechless, hurrying me to clear it as his gaze slowly moved around my face, and tickling me pink. Suddenly his body, the whole room, the skin on the bottom of my feet, all of it was at boiling point-

"_Naaanaaanaa." _A scratchy voice song on the song.

The instrumental started up, and our dance was over before I wanted it to be. Was this the end of the song? But there was no slow bridge... Damn these unpredictable, non-cliché eighties songs...

Reluctantly, I let him go as another song started. We couldn't dance anymore, I guessed. Don't get me wrong, Connie's household seemed to have good taste of music but whatever moment I'd had back there, that was gone. Have you ever tried talking to someone and all you got to go on was air?

Jean got called to another room by Connie, who sounded a little annoyed. "Could you be my wife and go get me something to eat from the table? I'll meet up with you outside, after I go see what Con wants." My nod was numb and he left the room.

_His wife?! _He was totally doing it on purpose _ahhhhh_.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Alors! Welcome to a **brand-spanking-new** chapter of Soul mate! Where are you?! A quick FYI that I should be editing this fic and will be combining chapters. Hopefully there are actually some people reading this! (You guys got priority this time, after I had to knead my brain to make me write). ((Also if I mentioned anything last chapter about what would happen in this one: ignore it)) **_

_**Be a kind bee and give me some feedback if you're lovin' or hatin' on this fic; I could always use the con crit, as my beta is... non-existent. I've been picking out flaws like there's no tomorrow, 'tis the life of a wretched writer! :')**_

_**4000+ views overall! I'm glad you're enjoying this fic ^_^ **_

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The sun had fallen low in the sky when Jean and I, worn out and backs slick with cooling sweat, stumbled towards the park down the road from Connie's house. Jean's face was pink from sunburn. His grey hoodie was knotted around his slim waist, hidden beneath a plain t-shirt with a neckline that revealed his flaking collarbone, jeans bearing more grass stains than actual denim, and quite frankly he smelled like hay when it was inside the horse's mouth.

Granted, I probably wasn't much better (dear god, please tell me that wasn't sweat stains pooling around my armpits) but I was too buzzed from the caffeine of Coke still sweet on my lips to really care.

Jean tilted his head in my direction, eyebrow raised in a way that was too teasing, too _knowing,_ for my liking. "Are you sure you weren't interested in him though-" he drawled in a singsong voice.

"No! I wasn't!" I gave him a light shove. When he shook his head and smiled I ground my teeth together in exasperation. "I'm telling you, he just went up to me and tried to chat me up because he was drunk -albeit, he was kind of cute-"

"And there it is-" he grinned, raising his hands into the air as he showcased his findings. I shot him the dirtiest look I could muster and he smirked. "I mean, I get where you're coming from because if you take away the fact he was a moron, he _was_-"

"But!" I raised a finger to try and prevent him from interrupting me again, but it was Jean, so I couldn't really hope he'd stop going on about it. "He stopped, eventually, and he said he had to... See his boyfriend." I muttered crossly, raising my hand to my neck to rub at the nape for reassurance- I'd be damned if Jean wasn't trying to set me up with Eren for some weird and icky reason I didn't want to know the logistics behind.

Jean glanced over at me, gold eyes narrowing as he bit the inside of his lip and looked away. He shrugged. "Could'a bagged him for you if you wanted..." And yup, there it was; Jean had been trying to start something between me and Eren. But I had to wonder... Why?

It wasn't like I'd been gushing about Eren. If anything, I'd been making sure to brush up against Jean- accidental touches, mind you- especially after the dancing fiasco which still sent tendrils of excitement winding around my spinal cord when I thought about it. And Jean had been there when Armin -the adorable little blonde I'd gladly hire as a matchmaker- had suggested we kiss. C'mon Jean: _strangers_ shipped us.

Hopefully Armin and Eren weren't the beta couple, or even worse, Sasha and Connie. See, when I read romance stuff, there was usually a beta couple that would be all "oh no, I can't tell them that the other one likes him because they have to do it themselves" and blah blah blah; YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THEM FROM THE ANGST CHAPTER AND WHATEVER.

It might've made for a less interesting story, but if the writer couldn't be assed showing that the couple did in fact live in a world where they had access to, I don't know, other romance books and internet with life lessons and wikihow pages on how to decipher other people's actions that they could take a hint from then they didn't deserve to write human beings!

Let's imagine my situation -the soul mate thing and whatever else- was a romance story. Naturally, seeing as my personality is ever so dazzling, I'd be the protagonist, and Jean would be the awesome love interest. I'm a writer, didn't I tell you that already? I studied the logistics of relationships for the sake of perfecting those Makoharu fan-fictions I created. (No, my friends at school didn't need to know that)

Taking that into account, if Jean liked me back: I'd know. And damn, I wasn't exactly subtle about my flirting. If he figured it out without me having to tell him during an over-glorified confession scene, I'd call it divine intervention and a day.

Breaking away from my inner ramblings about the idiocy of authors I found online, I crossed my arms, grimacing at the memory of what happened to me after Jean left to find Connie. Fun, fun times...

_Eren leaned closer, tongue tracing the outline of his full lips, breath bitter with vodka the flavour of mouthwash, as I tried to veer away from the stench. "So you're not dating that horseface guy, right?" His hooded green eyes gleamed with seduction, but they looked predatory, as though internally mocking how easily baited I was. Pah, if only he knew._

_My cheeks warmed involuntarily, but my jaw tightened as I stood my ground. "If you don't back off, I'll massage your face with the nasty end of a screw-driver." My brown eyes flared, daring him, but I kinda hoped he wouldn't try and take me up on the offer; it'd be a shame to mess up that face. (I'm making myself sound like a psychopathic murderer: sorry not sorry)_

_Seeing as that was probably the worst threat known to man, Eren snorted and his smirk stretched wider. "Well aren't you just a fiesty-" he stopped midsentence, eyes darting to the side as his face lost its teasing expression, head jerking along with his aimless gaze until he searched the room behind him. "... The fuck?"_

_"What is it?" I asked._

_He shook his head, raising it like a rabbit peering out of its burrow and he stumbled outside. Not sure why I did, but I followed him. Hey, if he ended up collapsing I didn't want to get the blame for being the last person who saw him, after all._

_"Do you hear that?"_

_Trailing behind him, I rolled my eyes. "Nope."_

_"There's like, this guy's voice. Telling me to go down the road? How can't you hear that? He's so fucking loud and pissy..." Eren barged his way into the front garden with a stomp in his step. "Hey don't call me a brat, you dick!"_

_As Eren shouted and cursed obscenities into the air of the neighbourhood, realization struck me. Boy was I ever glad that he was finally distracted with something other than flirting with me. Eren was a pretty guy, I guess, but such an egoistical bastard at that._

_I leaned against the frame of the front door in amusement, grinning victoriously. "Go, little bird. Fly to him."_

_In one quick movement, he snapped his head back to me and projected his "what do I do" vibe my way. "Come with me will ya?"_

_'Eh, no. I'm trying to get rid of you, buddy.' I thought._

_"In one hand I have a jar of sympathy, in the other I have a butter knife." I mimed holding the two metaphorical objects. "I don't feel like spreading my concern onto the toast that is your situation."_

_And so boys and girls, Eren roamed free onto the streets of Trost in his drunken daze; his quest to find his destined partner had just begun. Dear God; please help the poor guy who was about to be confronted with Eren as his soul mate. That is, if Eren ever actually found him and figured out what was going on._

_However, even though Eren was drunk off his ass, I reckoned with how persistent he was with me (ew) his soul mate would be tracked down in no time. No, no, I wasn't jealous of everyone else's superior spatial skills. Nah screw that, I lived for the thrill of the chase!_

"No." I repeated. "I definitely was. NOT. Into that guy." Jean simply blinked and stared at me for a few moments while I tried to ignore the giddiness suddenly swelling up the more he looked at me.

We crossed over the same bridge from earlier, walking along the winding, cobbled path that had once been fully lit, now splattered with spotlights of sunset shining through the branches of silhouetted trees, sheltering us from the full glare of light but still making the grass beneath glow a luscious green.

Birds twittered above the low hum of distant traffic, ringing in my ears and piercing the air around us, that slowed with the stillness of pond water, and the simplicity of calm skies, calm smiles and calm feelings.

It was a world-stopping calmness, and I felt it loosening my joints and oozing the tension out my muscles. Because I'm usually a person constantly on the move, raring to go like my wanderlust filled parents, I knew my restlessness was settled beneath the laidback nature of Jean- which surprised me, but it was easy to accept nonetheless.

You couldn't just ignore the dappled leaves of distant trees, the expanses of shadows on the grass, and the gradual blue of the sky that whitened above the horizon and the bubble of miniature waves that gave me appreciation for the peaceful things.

They allowed me to take a break from the things blurred by excitement and adventure and attraction, and think about the idea that walking, being wakeful, weightless as the dusting of clouds brimming the horizon, could be a good thing all by itself, and some things didn't need to be fanciful to be special.

I, um, have high expectations of myself. Is it obvious? Er, probably.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Jean peering at me with a curious expression. When I turned to face him, he tried to scrutinize me, moving closer and his fingers rose, ever so gently trailing along the curve of my cheek with a cool, affectionate touch that lingered longer than necessary. Slowing my pace, my head ducked in embarrassment, eyes wandering over his tinged skin and lowered lids and I reached to lightly grasp his wrist.

"Jean..." I gulped down some of the butterflies threatening to overflow, almost unconsciously walking into him so that our shoulders bumped, and allowing my widened stare to linger on parted lips. "What are you doing...?" I chuckled, my chest swelling with an odd mixture of embarrassment, awkwardness and happiness. Whatever it was, could I order another two portions? "I know I'm gorgeous but please refrain from staring."

His eyes matched mine, widening with childlike glee. "Freckles." he whispered as though this was something newly discovered. No need to be cute Jean, we're both teenage boys here.

"Yes, I have freckles. I thought this was an established fact."

"Well, yeah. No, but, there's more." he stepped in my way and lifted his other hand to fondle my cheeks, a thumb slipping down to caress my jaw. His smile caused a dimple in his left cheek. Ooh I was in deep shit. "I'm trying to count them but there's too many and I keep losing track of what number I counted to..." Counting them. Counting them! Oh Jean, did you lose count because you were lost in my eyes?

"Y-yeah, that's what happens when I'm in the sun." I breathed. "Sun comes out and voila! Freckles galore!"

"Sun child. You should never be shadowed." he insisted, lips curling up to reveal crooked canines.

I grew fidgety under his stare. "Come on, we're going to the park, gotta soak up more rays before the moon goes up and night-time Jean comes out to play."

"Night time Jean?"

"Yes!" I tore myself from his hold. Sprinting towards the climbing frame beyond an upcoming hill, I bounded backwards and called out to him. "Now come on, let's go to the park!"

When he caught up to me, we found ourselves up to our knees in woodchips. Jean occupied himself with the metal, green climbing frame, rusted from the hands of past participants. I took it upon myself to try and figure out what the weird pole thing beside it was, clutching onto the handles and assuming I had to spin around, but that meant taking my feet on the ground, so, ha, no.

A loud series of hollow clangs caught my attention, draining me of all the blood in my face when I saw Jean, that crazy, reckless idiot, climbing to the roof of the climbing frame by way of the tunnel slide.

"Jean!"

"I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal!" He chanted, sticking his tongue out at me where he stood -actually stood, great Zelda I was feeling faint just imagining being that high up, let alone close to toppling off the edge- and grinned towards the horizon. Ah, there he is, that creature of the night I've turned into a nymph of daylight.

"For my sake, please don't die!"

_"Your_ sake?!"

"If you fall I'll collapse from shock!"

He sat down on the slope of the roof, lying down as I tried to quell the onslaught of nerves wrecking my stomach from inside out. "And wouldn't that just be a shame for the human race." he tutted.

"Yeah, it would!" The woodchips invaded the sleeves of my trousers as I sat down, craning my head so I could talk to Jean. Or well, I was talking, he was just laughing at how scared I was.

While lying down, he popped his head up, propped up by a bent arm beneath his head. "You should join me."

"I'll die."

"Don't be a pussy!"

"What's wrong with being a cat?"

He scoffed, rolling his eyes at my pun. "Mr Nine Lives, you won't be able to even live once if you've never lived at all and haven't sat your fine ass on this here roof beside the most beautiful man in the world. And by that I mean me. Because. I am."

My toes curled in my shoes, I wasn't even high up and I was already squeamish at the thought of being there. How did he do that? He just whizzed up there like he was made for it. "Don't want to..." I whined.

"Don't deny the booty what it desires, Marco. It wants to sit up here; I hear her cries of wanting to be free from your vertigo."

"I'm still gonna die." After I said that (to a friendly woodchip distracting me and my twitchy fingers) I raised my head to hear more clanging and Jean shuffling down the slide, legs spread as he straddled the tunnel slide. Would you look at that, he was flexible enough to ride someone, sure enough...

With a lot of encouragement (Jean smacking my ass as he talked to it -"Thar she blows!"- while I tried to hide the brazen flush on my face and climbed in front of him) my butt was sat on the pyramid shaped roof. Naturally, I held onto Jean for dear life, fingers wrapped so tight around his bicep it hurt me, let alone Jean.

"Oh my god."

"Would you look at that, you're finally swearing. I feel mighty accomplished."

"Oh. My. _God_."

Jean guffawed at my expression as I tried and failed to not peek over the edge. I ignored him in favour of trying to calm down, finding reassurance in the warmth of his pale arms I had a death grip on.

"I've been cliff diving. I've been on a cliff that was fifty feet with the threat of rocks and death and the sea and scary fishes way down below," I told him, breath shaking with elation and terror. "And this is still worse." It was probably only fifteen feet up, but you can't tell the body what it wants to be scared of.

The wind was stronger up here, and to distract myself from the possibility of being blown over the edge, I stared at the feathers that made up Jean's blonde hair. "At least I'll die seeing your beautiful face. Since I'm going to die, I might as well tell you you have nice hair. I don't understand it, but it's very pretty."

To my delight he self consciously ran some fingers through his locks (yum), honey eyes assessing me cautiously, and a blotch of red stained his already burnt face, more prominent on his left cheek as though he'd been pinched. "It's an undercut. And before you ask, it's not dyed, it's naturally just brown underneath."

I blinked a few times. "I never got to visit Japan."

"What?"

"It's on my bucket list, but since I'm going to die I guess that's invalid." My grip on his arm tightened as he tried to peel me off, muttering something about 'baby steps, c'mon it's just like riding a bike, daddy's got to let you go at some point'. "Not only will I die a virgin, but these lips have never been kissed and that makes me sad." I raised my eyebrows when he met my gaze, a hitch in his breath making me bite my bottom lip. Take me seriously Jean, go on... This would make things a lot easier if we just gave into the mood.

He seemed to be reluctantly mulling over something, before resting both his hands on my forearms, and pouting. "Well I guess, if you're that desperate..." his eyes glittered as he drew closer, nudging my nose with his so that my eyes bulged out their sockets. He, he what?! Was he really going to? I shouldn't have eaten that burger earlier because what if my breath smelled bad, what if he used tongue, I didn't know how to do that-

His breath tickled my lips as he whispered. "You'll just have to kiss my _shiny metal ass_."

My heart gave out as he pulled away, grinning slyly. That. Jean I swear, I'm going to, I'm gonna freaking, why didn't you, just, what, you evil train, you misleading duck, you stupid piece of popcorn-

"Gy'_nyah_." My throat closed up. How do words. "I-it's 'bite' my shiny metal ass-" I told him, avoiding his eyes and burning holes into the rubber of the roof.

He sighed evenly, almost a huff, but it sounded softer. "Marco I'm not kinky like you, you'll have to forgive me."

_"Jean_."

My grip on his arm loosened and suddenly I was sliding off the roof. Served me right, I guess.

* * *

**_"In one hand I have a jar of sympathy, in the other I have a butter knife." I mimed holding the two metaphorical objects. "I don't feel like spreading my concern onto the toast that is your situation." I'm so proud of this line I'm going to quote it forever lmao. till next time :D_**


	14. Chapter 14

"I think," Jean whispered, scarcely glancing at me as he hovered over the living room couch. "Yeah, I think I'm just going to go up to my room. I need to cool off so don't come upstairs for a bit. Okay?"

Before I could answer, Jean jogged out the room, footsteps pounding up each step of the stairwell. I sighed and flopped back onto the couch, closing my eyes and biting my trembling bottom lip.

It turned out that when you got Jean into a heated debate about his beliefs and philosophy, he did not fuck around.

(Gasp, that's my first swear)

Earlier on at the park, after the effects of being winded wore off, Jean and I walked back to his house. Chuckling about my near death experience (and him laughing his head off about how dramatic I was) we arrived to dinner in the kitchen, where his mum, cheery and talkative about her time at work, had cooked up some spaghetti.

As a side note, I'd like to say her dinners were always divine: every meal I'd had this week in the Kirschtein household had me drooling and sneaking peeks into the kitchen whenever I smelled food cooking. Sure, we'd already had burgers but since we're growing boys we obviously needed to stuff ourselves silly. In every way possible. (You wish Marco, you wish)

"Marco?" I lifted my head at his questioning tone. "Do you think you can stay downstairs for a bit after dinner?"

I tilted my head. "Why? To what did I owe this demand, Mr Kirschtein? Do I think I can? Am I honestly, physically capable of this action, dearest Jean? Let's hope so, for your sake."

Leaning over the dinner table, Jean checked to see that his mum wasn't paying attention and whispered to me. "We're sharing a bedroom and I haven't had any time to myself since you got here. I think I'm going to explode."

"Oh." My face dropped and I stopped eating. "Right, you don't want to have me around all the time. My constant presence must be really annoying. Sorry."

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry for annoying you."

That poor, introverted boy. I must've read him wrong when I assumed he was an extrovert. Maybe he was an ambivert? He did seem to thrive under attention. And by thrive I mean he loved showing off. Loots of showing off.

Here comes Jean; get the spotlight on him or he'll wither away. Yes, I'm totally exaggerating but who knows, maybe there was a side to him that craved attention that badly. And for someone who loved attention he really didn't like talking about himself; surprising.

He preferred to talk about his surroundings. His friends. School. And sometimes I found him asking me questions, he was doing that more recently. Then he complained about me being tight lipped. Hmm, is that irony I smell? Jean, this is a give and take relationship. Stop being so greedy, there needs to be plenty of Marco to go around.

Jean stared at me, eyebrows crinkling. "Dude. You're not annoying me at all, I fucking love having you around. Mum hardly scolds me for being a lazy lump around the house anymore." His mother clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes. "You talk about all kinds of random shit, like seriously philosophical stuff 'cause you're smart and it's awesome. You make stupid, cheesy jokes too. The contradiction is beautiful." He huffed a laugh and his voiced raised unintentionally. "I gotta jack off, you idiot."

"Jean-bo!" Lynne exclaimed as my jaw dropped, both of us aghast at his sudden announcement. "That's what the bathroom's for, don't go kicking him out your room for something so silly." She sat beside us as she chuckled.

"Ma you wouldn't understand, being a man is so troublesome." They're not even remotely embarrassed, great zelda...

And when Jean went upstairs, leaving the kitchen with a wink in my direction that had me hunching my shoulders and blushing like mad, I was seriously glad I didn't share thoughts with him. That could've become even more awkward than it already was. At least, for me. Or if I'd shared his feelings like he did for me... Christ he probably knew, no he definitely knew I was thinking about him. Naked. In the shower. Doing stuff. Lovely.

Sorry to interrupt your entry Marco Jr., but when your crush's mother is in the room it's not your time to shine. Save it for the bedroom. Anyway. I stayed downstairs for... some time. Making small talk with his mum. (Because adults always have so many adventures to talk about after they hit thirty) And then she went and popped the question I'd been hoping wouldn't come up -it was all very similar to the awful conversations my aunt and I had at Christmas. Aunt Rene is lovely, she truly is and I love her to bits, but sometimes I worry that she knows me better than I know myself.

What would she do with the information about my love life, hobbies and grades, I always wonder? Could it be that she's secretly a government official and is checking up on me to report back to HQ? Maybe I was a supernatural being at birth and they had to keep watch of me via a trustworthy family member. Maybe they think I'm a terrorist. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.

"Are you dating him yet?" Ugh, dating, what an old fashioned label.

I groaned. "No, Lynne." She pouted in disappointment. "I want to take things at his pace. Besides, I don't even know if he likes me that way." The back of my mind whispered to me, "Scared of rejection, are you? He already told you he doesn't believe in love, why would he change his mind for you? You're raising your own hopes, idiot." Yes, yes, I know. I know my place. Let's keep it that way.

"Darling," she said, and it reminded me of the way Jean called me 'dude'. "He literally just told you he loves having you around. He openly tried to seduce you, right here in front of me. What more are you wanting from him?"

Oh my god, why did this woman want me to be her son's suitor so badly?! Sure, we had the psychic connection we'd told her about-or, well, that was how she'd explained it to Jean- but was she really expecting us to want to hit it off? She barely knew me, just met on a Tuesday -four days ago- and she was giving us her blessing. Or rather shoving it in our faces. Kinda creepy.

Most would probably think, in this situation, you don't take acceptance for , understandable. If anything, I was really appreciative of the fact she was not only tolerating the fact me and her son were gay, but also encouraging us to be together.

But her insistent pushing -or no, sorry, her strong persuasion- made me wonder if she was trying to live her dreams through Jean. She did say she'd almost met her soulmate her at Trost. While it was a nice dream, Lynne really shouldn't have been so focused on our relationship status.

"I'm thinking something along the lines of vocal confirmation? He might just like having a gay friend to flirt with platonically. I mean, that's what I do with my friends. A lot of people do, from what I know." From what I was going to make up in my head because heck yeah that sounded legit. Also it backed me up: high five, me.

"So you do want to date with him." Stop reading me!

"Well, yeah, but I don't think either of us are ready for a relationship." Not leaving any room for a retort, I picked up my tomato stained, emtpy plate and placed it on the dirty-dish rack.

Then she looked at me as I turned to her on my way out the room. Her arms were crossed over the torso of her beige apron. There wasn't an shadow of humour on her rounded face and her pale eyes glistened with a longing sheen, a mellowed gaze of such intense pining, and oh it was so sad that it made me stop in my tracks. I don't deal well with tears. Tears are bad.

"You might not have time to prepare, Marco." A stuttering sigh broke through her lips. "Sometimes you can't give things the time they need to fully develop. As you grow up, it's a painful thing to endure; rushing into things that aren't at your pace. But you learn to adapt. You make do." She shook her bowing head, lowering her gaze to the oak table. "Don't let this opportunity escape you while it's still there."

I understood what she was saying. Really, I did. Growing up is painful, the Western society views love as the most important thing on the planet and doting parents want what's best for their spoiled kids, blah de blah. But what I also understood was the fact she wasn't seeing both sides of the situation. Making my way to the living room, I left the kitchen without a word.

But despite what I said about neither of us being ready, that wouldn't stop me from continuing to make moves on Jean. Albeit, discreet and subtle: you've got a master flirter here talkin' to y'all (it's all liiiiies). I think Lynne's little lecture got to me more than it should have. What can I say? I was a gullible kid. A naive, gullible kid who was trying to keep everyone happy, even if it meant putting myself last. Or putting myself first. I can't tell. Self awareness is a difficult thing to understand.

After that delightful conversation, I was all settled on the couch with my phone and Jean came in freshly dried, fully clothed in superman PJ's, to my disappointment. I cracked a few jokes about him jerking off (cue the lewd hand gestures) and he rolled his eyes, telling me "I know you wanted in on the action. Next time, I promise, bae."

Rolling onto my back I cheesed a grin at him, unable to stop myself from noticing how red his lips were, how big his pupils had become, and this one water drop that was still making its way down his neck. That should've been licked off by now. By me. "Aw how kind of you. I'll hold you to that, sweetheart." After all, I hadn't jacked off for four days either...

Wow Marco, what self restraint you have! Nah, to be honest I make myself out to be a lot more sexually frustrated than I actually am. Franz, my friend back home, he was pretty bad for talking about sex. He'd lost his virginity at thirteen years old to a German exchange student he'd been getting super sappy with, and since then he got caught up in talking about sex. All. The. Time. His behaviour kind of rubbed off on me. Hah. Another masturbation pun.

Jean-bo sat beside me on the couch, getting out his laptop from a nearby coffee table while I made do with the Facebook feed on my phone. But then, curiosity got the better of me. It always does. I think in another life I was the Cat who was killed by Curiosity (Curiosity is now a wanted criminal). I took a peek at the screen, quickly looking away because being nosy is rude.

But then again, Jean was also pretty rude when he wanted to be and I let myself look a little longer, unable to decipher what was on the screen because apparently I'm as blind as the prejudiced, homophobic Jewish lady on my street, until Jean turned the laptop away from me. When I said he's rude I mean that he liked to insult people a lot and everyone's business was his business.

He said it's him being social and how he shows his affection which I found was quite sweet. Other people said he tried to get involved with conversation he wasn't welcome to joining but they were too polite to exclude him -and by other people I mean that's what Sasha's friend told me earlier on. I didn't like her very much. Her views were skewed. The method of making friends is done by walking into conversations spontaneously, no? The more random your chosen topic, the quirkier and more charming people find you to be.

When I began draping myself over Jean legs in an attempt to take a peek at his screen, he gave in and shoved me backwards with a pointy elbow so he could show me. It was a writing website. In fact, it was the very website I posted my Makoharu fan fiction on. This worried me. Did Jean know? About my hobby of looking up the fluffiest fictions I could find? Did he? And if he did, what was in store for me? I hoped it was fic recommendations.

"I've been betaing for a writer on this website. Have you ever heard of it?" The URL was . So sue me, I'll give you my money, just give me some feels in return that's all I ask. But Jean? A beta? Great Zelda that was the best news I'd heard in a while. "They mostly write about Harry Potter, but lately they've been getting into anime and they gave me a Boku No Pico piece." he scrunched up his face like he was eating a lemon.

"What's Boku no pico?" I asked.

His eyes flickered from the screen then to me. He made a quiet humming noise. "...It's an anime that will change your life." I made a mental note to look it up.

"You know, I write. I write for that exact website, in fact." I am a proud year old member. I'd posted twenty four works since then, most of them were MakoHaru, but then I gave in and just had to write about Shinji and Kaoru. God bless white haired anime boys. Seriously. They need all the miracles they can get.

"Really?" He actually seemed interested, looking at me while I nodded with a blush heating my cheeks. "You gotta show me your writing, I'll edit it for you if you want." He moved the cursor to the search bar.

"Aren't you doing their... Boku piece?"

With a grunt, he shrugged. "Yeah I'm not doing that to my sanity. What's your user-name?" His hands hovered over the keyboard, typing as I told him my pseudonym.

And what do you know: he clicked on my most recent work. It happened to be the one I wrote that was based on a Tumblr prompt. About soulmates.

Basically, it was quite a generic plot: everyone in the world has the first words their soulmate says to them written somewhere on their arm. But with two thousand hits after only seven chapters, I'd say I'm making the plot work in a unique way. Lots of reviews too. Over fifty. Half of the comments were my replies; it's a sad life to write fan fiction of gay anime boys who may or may not be canon. (I can always hope)

Let me stress the fact that it's fan fiction. Day in, day out. I used to have nightmares about that stuff. Mina, my friend who loved internet memes as much as I loved Lynne's cooking, showed me my very first fan fiction about Shrek. I was twelve years old and I am still scarred to this day. Yet when I watched Fairy Tail, I just had to research the "Boys Love" Juvia was talking about, and it got me to where I am today.

Five minutes later, Jean found he had a tongue. A sharp one at that.

"These guys just started going out and they're already talking about college?" he ranted when he was halfway through the fourth chapter. "And look, you can see that they won't want to be together when the time comes to actually leave highschool. They clearly don't love each other. It's fake as fuck."

I frowned, taking offence because my fan fiction is my precious child. "How's it fake?"

"You know why they're worried why they won't last during college, Marco?" He shot me a quizzing look. I shook my head, having never really heard an objective view on my work since the usual comments were "Oh my gosh, i love this! hope you continue :D". "It's because they don't want to limit themselves during college. They want to explore and meet new people. They know they're going to be tempted by the allure of being single."

"No they're not! They're just worried that Haru won't make it into college on a scholarship." I defended them, my beautiful, imaginary swimming babies. "They trust each other, so they'll work through it. They definitely love each other."

"Highschool sweethearts don't last, Marco." he insisted.

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh do tell, when was the last time you had a highschool sweetheart?"

"I've been in relationships; I had three boyfriends last year, one this year. We're young, man. We don't want things to last forever because we're only going to live once. And dating is..." he gazed off into nothing as he mused. "Well basically it's a system designed to give comfort. It's secure because you've got a label which comes with a set of obligations that are easily met if done by the textbook method-"  
"What do you mean by obligations?"

He gestured vaguely, pulling a face as he tried to think of a way to explain. "I mean like going out on dates, going out to the cinema-"

"Yeah but people do that because they like doing that. They like being together." Come on, that much was obvious. Hanging out is just what people do! When you like someone you want to spend all your time around them because they're awesome.

"They're together all the time because they feel like they have to be. They think "Oh, I'm going out with this person, I have to put them first so that they feel tended to. At the end of the date I can safely assume I will be kissed because I've reached their expectations and therefore made them happy. Now they will attempt to repay the favour." Being in a relationship really means you have to do a lot of things based on what you've seen other people do. It's a social construct." Oh wow, looks like I've met Mr. Psychologist.

"It's popular because it's tried and tested method: based on experience. Dating is so commonly done that you can pretty much plot out your entire relationship, have it down to a science. Having a crush is just a biological reaction to wanting sex and attention. Love is the expectations of society." How did we go from editing fan fictions to this...?

"... Is what you said based on experience? You sound kind of... jaded."

"No, you don't understand. Think about it: when you fall in love with someone, what do you think is going to happen?"

Well Jean, I fell in love and so far it's gotten me into a rather heated debate: it's not what I was expecting but that's what happened.

"If you start dating and it all goes well, then eventually you start living together-"

"And then you get married and have kids. You grow old, kids send you to an old folk's home and you die. It's a trend, Marco."

"Not everyone lives their life that way though-"

Jean huffed defiantly, seemingly unable to see my point of view as he interrupted. "But it's the majority view on what they expect love to be like, right? But that's not love. It's just comfort and the security of doing what they think is right, in order to fit in. In order to be paid attention to when no-one else gives a shit about them."

"Look, that way of thinking is really pessimistic. You're not thinking about how it improves people. Y-you're invalidating people's feelings." My feelings. "And they do have them!" I know I do! "That's why they give their emotions names! To recognise them and teach others about it, because being in love is a natural and normal thing, it's a collective term for someone you want romance and trust and comfort with." I sighed, not wanting to get too worked up. "I think you're just upset about what happened between your mum and dad-"

I must've crossed a line when I mentioned his parents because he shoved his laptop to the side and stood up.

"You don't know a fucking thing about what happened between my parents." his voice was laced with warning. He stood so that I couldn't see his face.

Frowning back at him, I grew warm as the anger began to boil inside me. "Because you won't tell me."

"I don't have to tell you shit! I met you four fucking days ago!"

"I know..." Was my weak answer. "I just, from what I can tell-"

"You're just a sheltered boy; you've never had experience in relationships or seen the reality that relationships don't always fucking work out-"

"Because people don't try and fix them! It would work if they-"

"You can't always fix them." Holding my breath, holding back a reply because those words triggered the fear of him implying the relationship between us two being unfixable; Jean turned to me and looked like he was going to cry. "I think..."

He left me sitting in the living room, by myself. Jean was just letting off some steam, he wasn't really mad at me, right? I'd go apologise in about half an hour. That might not be enough time for him to cool down, but I was going to have to go bed with him tonight, so better sooner than later. I hugged my knees to my chest, a lump solid in my throat.

Even though I hate clichés, it's the only way I can think to describe that feeling. Because it's good to have a name for what you feel! Clichés exist because people like certain ways of life and interctions and that's just how it is! God, Jean wasn't even in the room and I was still fighting with him in my head. Guess I needed to cool down too.

I spent a little longer on my phone. Reading about a kitten's brave journey through surgery seemed a little misplaced with what had just happened. I guess I was right about the two of us not being ready. Although, I was having a tough time figuring out when would the right time be if I couldn't convince Jean to have some hope.

Was what happened between his parents really that bad? Bad enough to make him have an existential crisis of sorts? I don't know. I got upset because of what Lynne said, how Jean was apparently all over me, and how the things Jean said basically made all of that a lie. I mean, I'd be fine being friends with him if he didn't like me, but Jean completely dismissing the fact I liked him? The possibility of the vice versa?

It reminded me of the time my friend, Thomas, came out to his parents; they were completely fine. Because they acted like he'd never even told them. Acted like he wasn't even gay. Kept asking him when he was going to bring a girl home. Continued giving him the excessively manly things he didn't even care for. He was much more prepared to be thrown out the house: not ignored and swept under the rug like he didn't exist.

One time when I went round to his house, I pretended to be his boyfriend just to get a rise out of them. They got quiet. For a real long time. That dinner was the most intense of my life and I wasn't even glanced at. Then they started chatting about how homosexuality is a silly teenage phase -one they were so glad they'd never went through, god bloody bless them- and then they told me I was welcome back any time, nice having you around... er, Thomas' friend! The next time I tried visiting, Thomas' dad opened the door, and shut it when he saw my face like he'd misheard the doorbell.

People like them. They get a rise outta me, let me tell you. It gives me a cold anger. The one where you're so mad it just dwells inside you like a miniature void to hell. Makes your joints all tense because if you move even an inch you're going to punch something, and hard.

To avoid the negativity inside me, I went back to my phone. Then it started ringing and I swiped the answer button. "Hello?" I asked because I had no idea who would be calling me.

"Yes, Marco?" Oh, Dad's voice. "Hi son, I was wondering, can you come home? As soon as you can, if that's possible. I'll come and get you if there's no buses. Sooner the better."

What? He wanted me back after only four days? With how eager he'd been to see me off on my merry way to Trost it struck me as odd that he'd want me back so soon. Hmm, maybe he missed me. Or maybe mum was feeling overprotective again. That one time I went to summer camp she cried and made me cry. Not much fun when I think back to it.

I gave dad Jean's address.


	15. Chapter 15

_hey lovelies! Just a warning, this hasn't been edited. Message me if there's glaring mistakes! or if you wanna say hey. or if you wanna invent terrible insults with me._

* * *

After staring at my black phone screen for a few minutes, I came to realize that this was the end. The end of the man hunt I'd so earnestly set myself on in search of who of all people? Jean. And yet here I was, preparing myself to leave. And throughout my time here nothing had really happened. Okay, maybe that's a lie. I made a new friend. I developed a crush on said friend, one that was obviously not returned, and… yeah that's not much of a fun story now is it? Kind of tragic really.

Two hours. That was all the time I had until dad picked me up. I assumed he was driving all the way from Jinae to here. But hmm. Two hours wasn't really long enough to get my nerve up to talk to Jean, probably to apologise.

Half an hour of staring into space. Still nothing. Come on Marco! Pick up your resolve! Do something to fix things!

To be honest, this was something I had to do a lot. If I ever got into a fight with someone, I apologised first. Was it a case of wanting the guilt I had to go away? Yes, usually. I don't do it because I feel like I was the one in the wrong, no, I'm not that good of a guy. Mentioning Jean's parents had definitely been too low of a blow for me. I didn't deserve to ask for his forgiveness.

But then again, if I didn't apologise first, I'd be a dick. And sitting here doing nothing wasn't doing much to solve anything.

I played with the idea of going upstairs for another few minutes. Just as I was about to stand up and leave, the living room door opened and Jean peeked his head round.

"Hi." He whispered, eyes darting as his lips tightened. "I'm sor-"

"No don't apologise," I cut him off. "_I'm_ the one who should be sorry. And I am. I apologise for bringing up your parents and starting a fight."

With a sigh he pulled the door open further and closed it behind him, leaning on it. "The first half I can agree with, accept that bit, yeah. But no, I started that fight by telling you your writing was… y'know. False. I easily could'a kept my mouth shut but I didn't. So I'm sorry."

Jean looked guilty and that was something that he shouldn't have had to feel because of me-

"Stop it." His voice interrupted my thoughts. "I came down here because I could feel you wallowing in self-pity and guilt and it affects me too, y'know?"

I bowed my head down. "Sorry."

"Truce?"

"If… you're okay with it, yeah."

He hadn't moved away from the door. "I heard you on the phone earlier, was that your… mum?"

"Dad. He says he wants me home."

"Oh. That soon?"

I scratched my head, ever the terrible liar. "He came home early once he found out what happened with the hotel flooding."

"Oh yeah," Jean huffed a laugh. "Forgot about that."

"Careful, you'll end up forgetting everything like me." I smiled.

"I wouldn't forget you." He tilted his head, eye boring into mine.

A heat rose to my cheeks at his sentimentality. "I mean the fact that I forget everything, and you'll be that way too. Not that I'd forget you, or anything." I added quickly.

"So… how much time do you have left?" Jean walked forward, moving to sit by me on the couch, perching on his seat like he was about to take off again.

"Takes two hours to get from Jinae to Trost, and he called me about half an hour ago."

His eyes drifted to the carpeted floor and he ran his thin fingers through the golden part of his hair. A pang struck within me at the thought of never having touched it, or caressed it the way he was doing now. "That's only an hour and a half left for you then." He commented, as though explaining it to himself. I nodded.

It seemed like a long time and yet it was the shortest time slot there was when it came to spending time with Jean. We'd spent hours talking, just being in each other's company. Sharing a bed had encouraged that, what with the few times Jean had kept me up with nonsensical ramblings and weird conversations. I had a habit of over-sharing, and in Jean's presence I held myself back during those talks. I didn't want to annoy him with all the details, unlike my parents who would wring out every piece of information from me that they could.

"Do you want to watch something on the computer until it's time?" he pointed at the laptop on the coffee table that had fallen asleep. "I haven't got Netflix but the internet should do, right?"

A sense of self-doubt kept me from answering him aloud. Wasn't he supposed to be mad at me? Why was he okay with being by me when he hadn't been half an hour earlier? It didn't fit that he would forgive me so quickly…

Jean turned to look at me as he set up the laptop. "What?"

I shrugged. "Nothin'." Fixing my eyes on the laptop, I saw that he had Youtube open.

"Are you still upset? That's what it feels like, did you want to be alone?"

"No it's not that, it's just…" My shoulders slackened. "Why are you forgiving me so easily? I brought up a sore subject and all I had to do was say sorry, and now you're here."

"You're overthinking it, Marco." He left it at that and found an anime he'd been wanting to show me.

We managed to get through three episodes of Gintama before we headed up to Jean's room to pack up my things. Lynn knocked at the door, explaining we'd worried her with our shouting.

"Nah, we're cool now mum. But Marco's got to leave." Jean gestured towards me as I filled up my bag (discreetly trying to hide the condoms from Jean's vision).

Lynn leaned against the doorframe, eyes full of hurt and arms crossed as though she was about to begin a lecture but Jean managed to shoo her out before she managed to make me feel even more guilty. Yes yes, I haven't made out with your son. Deal with it!

"Hey Marco, do you wanna skype while you're in Jinae? It'll be pretty costly to make visits to each other."

"Yeah I'd love that!" I pulled out my phone and gave him my skype username "theBodtTrot". We spent a few moments messaging each other despite being right beside one another. He grinned at me as he typed on his laptop.

**From: Jeansawesomebcyeh**

Hi :P

**From: theBodtTrot**

Heeey! :D

**From: Jeansawesomebcyeh**

I hate my username but I can't change it

**From: theBodtTrot**

Same. I don't even dance? Why did twelve year old me pick this omg

**From: Jeansawesomebcyeh**

Mine just makes me look like I love myself

**From: theBodtTrot**

But you do

**From: Jeansawesomebcyeh**

True but the rest of the world doesn't need to know that

**From: theBodtTrot**

They do

**From: Jeansawesomebcyeh**

Ur right they really do. Do you know how awesome I am?

**From: theBodtTrot**

Totally! You're like, omg, so awesome. ^_^ Am I?

"What do I have to do to reach your level of awesomeness?" I asked him aloud.

Jean hummed. "When you get to Jinae you have to Fox Trot with a chav." The doorbell downstairs rang in a sharp trill. "Looks like you'll be doing that dancing sooner rather than later."

And then came the fun part of my dad meeting Jean.


End file.
